Ripples in an Ocean
by Swiss Army Knife
Summary: Stories exploring the character and relationships of Iruka-sensei. Chapter Summary: The definition of value in a shinobi society, as seen throughout Iruka's life; Additional character - Kakashi
1. Truth, Sum of Many Lies

**Ripples in an Ocean**

by Swiss

* * *

**1. Truth, Sum of Many Lies**

Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Kakashi, Assorted  
Summary: When asked about his scar, Iruka never tells the same story twice.

* * *

"_Be fond of the man who jests at his __scars__, but never believe he is being on the level with you." _- Pamela Hansford Johnson

Umino Iruka didn't stand out in a crowd. It wasn't because he was particularly boring, but only that he was particularly ordinary. He wasn't bubbly, or mysterious, or especially shy. He had a dark complexion, with unremarkable brown features - eyes, skin, hair. He sunk in instead of standing out. Not very tall, not very short. Not _very _anything. There were those that admired his warm, easy smile, but for the most part he was merely Iruka.

The only thing singular about Iruka at all in appearance was drawn across his face – that odd, aberrant scar. It sat on the bridge of his nose and crinkled when he grinned and burned white when he blushed. It was like a little upward twitch of the mouth – secretive, special.

His children soon grew used to it, but every fall there were a fresh set of questions. "Sensei! Iruka-sensei, what happened with your face?"

And always Iruka crossed his arms and looked down at them while they sat with their mouths vapidly open, waiting from their desks.

"Once, when I was traveling on an undercover mission through grass country," the teacher intoned gravely. "I was attacked by an alligator." And when the young people looked on wide eyed, he would trace the line on his face in a slow draw, like a great, hooked tooth. He finished, "I barely made it away alive."

Gasps, astonishment, babbling, and declarations of disbelief. His new class spent the rest of the year befuddled, trying to decide if they believed it was true.

Naruto's year had gotten a different story. "He was crossing a bridge in a snowstorm," Shikamaru once told his father as they sat hunched over a game board. The son's face twitched with irritation as he recounted the scene, as though he could not begin to describe how troublesome such conditions must have been. "There was so much snow that he didn't see the sai-wielding eucalyptus demons until they were close."

"I didn't know you believed such stories," the older man lightly chastised after he had ceased blinking with surprise.

The child nudged a piece forward on the board. Brow furrowed, he muttered firmly, "Sensei doesn't lie."

When asked, Konohamaru would enthusiastically divulge how Sensei had bravely climbed the Hokage's mountain in a deluge of rain to rescue a lost tarantula. He had saved the beloved pet, but unfortunately fell half the way down. "Iruka-sensei was still learning to be a ninja then," Konohamaru always ended, shaking his head. "That's the reason he fell. I bet he could do it easy now."

Many of the teachers had similar stories. Dozens of children felt certain that their private inquiry had yielded the true story. Yet no one really knew. And this became as intriguing as the old injury itself, because as many times as Iruka had ever been asked, he always gave a different answer.

Which was how Kakashi first got involved, when he overheard a conversation about it while pretending to read Icha Icha in the mission room.

"Who knows how he got that scar," one of the nameless mid-rankers spoke to a companion as they stood idly by the window. "He told Takashi that he was tortured by a tribe of beet-eating madmen, and he told a group of ambassadors he was escorting from Wave that it was part of a Konoha blood-letting ritual."

"By the Hokage," his companion sputtered with laughter.

The former nodded. "Umhm. And the story seems to shift according to it's purpose. He told my little girl, Hana, that he tripped while carrying scissors."

Intrigued, Kakashi reluctantly opened his eyes and pushed away from the wall. The two were so lax in their discipline that they did not notice him come upon them until he was right at their backs. They turned when he cleared his throat.

Kakashi loomed. "Umino. He never tells the same story?"

"N-no," the youthful nin stammered.

The jounin nodded. Such audacity was like a welcome invitation. And Kakashi, ever one to fill the chronic boredom of his off hours with a bit of harmless intelligence gathering, was only too happy to oblige.

He quickly gathered the stories of the students and children, ever an overflowing cascade of weeping secrets. Dull little animals. He wondered that any ever made it to adulthood.

Naruto was his last resort among the young. There, he felt, was surely the truth. Everyone in Konoha was familiar with how poor, strange Iruka-sensei had taken in the Kyuubi brat and kept him alive for so long. Moreover, he knew the adolescent was fiercely, even familially, attached to the older man.

"Scar?" Naruto asked. "Which? Oh, on his face. I dunno. Probably it was something stupid." Conspiratorially, the blonde whispered, "Sensei's pretty clumsy. I bet he just fell off of the roof."

"You never asked him?" It made the jounin's eye narrow with gruff frustration. The lack of curiosity and complete disregard for vital intelligence was galling. Not to mention the fact that he'd considered this brat to be his most reliable source of information, and now he was disappointed.

For his part, Naruto looked dumbfounded by his question. "Ask?" he wondered aloud. "But lots of people have scars. And what if he doesn't want to tell? It could hurt his feelings!"

The blunt humanity reminded the copy-nin forcefully of Iruka-sensei himself, which only compounded his irritation. Proof positive that the teacher was rooting the deliberate evil out of the future warriors of Konoha in his free time. The rest of which was obviously spent conspiring to confuse the well meaning stalkers of his community with these foolish stories.

And the man called himself a loyal nin.

However, Kakashi was determined. He slunk away from the children and went to dredge the well of individuals more certainly contaminated with a decent sense of non-privacy.

"Yeah, I asked him once," Asuma said. "After Konohamaru's yammering about the Tarantula, I felt like the truth might make my brain less numb."

Kakashi agreed with this sentiment; his own brain felt like someone had sat on it. But Iruka, so far as he knew, was relatively friendly toward Asuma, and he was close to the Third's family. Surely Asuma would have been told the truth. "What did he say?" he asked.

Asuma withdrew his cigarette from his mouth and exhaled a puff of smoke. Deadpan, he repeated the story: "Rock."

Kakashi blinked. "He was...hit by a rock?"

"No, it challenged him to a riddle game. Apparently he's bad a riddles. The rock retaliated."

There was a pause. "Retaliated?"

Asuma was patting his pockets for a new cigarette. "I wondered that too, but he only said it was rude to ask. He looked so serious, and I don't like being around him when he's fussy. Damn-scary-teacher-no-jutsu."

Genma and Raido's combined story was even less comprehensible. "Iruka's scar?" Raido scratched his hair, as though he wondered what could possibly be so interesting about a facial scar. Smiling, he related, "He told me it was a toaster malfunction."

Perhaps misinterpreting Kakashi's stunned silence, he frowned and prodded Genma, who was sitting across from Kakashi looking bored. "It was the toaster, right?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah. Iruka never did make good toast."

Tsunade was more helpful in the ordinary way of things, if not very enlightening. "It's not in any of his records," she told him, bristling over her playing cards. Kakashi was winning. "Not in the medical folders, mission reports, or private records. I looked after he tried to tell me it was a mark of approval from the gods giving him permission to torment the current Hokage. Ha! What a dissident. I'm going to flog him one day."

Kakashi looked at her critically, wondering if she really would. Probably not. Iruka was a pretty popular guy, for all that averageness. And besides, public flogging had gone out of favor with the general population at least a couple of decades ago.

It was as he was leaving the Hokage's office that Iruka himself finally caught up to him. A little brat emerged from the corner of a building, and stomped up to Kakashi with the air of one who had been kept waiting inordinately long. He gestured imperiously.

Kakashi knelt beside the scruffy child. "Yo," he said by way of greeting.

The boy hardly seemed impressed. If anything, he looked cross. "I have a message for you," he said.

A crease of his one visible brow. "Oh?"

The brat placed his hands, arms akimbo, and his expression became one of truly furious irritation. "Iruka-sensei said to tell you, 'Stop being stupid. Just come and ask me.'" More puffed up fury followed, and the child declared, "If you're harassing Sensei, I won't forgive you!"

Kakashi's eye narrowed. Maa, the youth today. Disrespectful as hell.

* * *

He actually met Iruka at the tea house by accident. He'd been mulling over what the next step might be in his greater Plan when he noticed the teacher pacing down the road through a dusting of snow flurries, chin hunched into the folds of a deep red scarf and carrying a packet of papers under his arm.

Hesitating, Kakashi almost hadn't hailed him. However, after today there wasn't any doubt that his molesting of the general public for information had reached Iruka, and so there was no reason for him not to attempt a frontal assault.

Iruka joined him with surprisingly little resistance, smiling amicably as he settled at the table and laid aside his papers. He sighed in the pleasant warmth and undid his scarf as he placed a quiet order for tea.

Then he turned. "Kakashi. My students mentioned that you were making inquires."

Blunt, straightforward. The jounin flinched slightly, though not in chagrin. He wasn't particularly sorry for anything except the break down in intelligence. Children were so hard to threaten these days.

"I don't appreciate you telling my children lies. Really – that you'd come for them at night and tear out their liver? Touya wouldn't stop crying for an hour."

Kakashi balanced his chin against his palm. "From what I heard," he said. "You're the one known for telling lies, Sensei."

A slight tilt of the head that made the neat ponytail fall sideways. The snowflakes caught in it were melting, and so it looked almost black in places. His body language indicated that he was waiting for something more. It was very diplomatic of him. Kakashi often wondered if Iruka wasn't more involved in politics than he let on.

"I was interested in the real story about that mark you carry. I wanted to know who hurt you."

Iruka looked at him without expression. "What makes you say that?" he asked.

"Oh," Kakashi said, leaning over his cup and observing the back-and-forth sloshing as though it held great interest for him. "I figured it had to be painful or embarrassing or else you'd just say."

The teacher grinned then, and it was a particularly wicked thing for the usually mild-mannered teacher. Smugly, he suggested, "Maybe I just like to make up stories. It's a wonderful conversation starter, you know. Or don't people usually ask why they can only see a quarter of your face?"

"People don't dare," Kakashi responded, a vein of steel winding around his words. Deflection. He hadn't expected to be attacked.

Iruka shrugged, leaning back in his seat. He suddenly seemed to find the rest of the denizens interesting, and peered through them in a distracted way that left his eyes wandering and difficult to read. "Perhaps I'm just not intimidating enough," he said, and chuckled as though amused by the idea he might ward off small children and well-meaning citizens by emitting a radius of aggression.

Put that way, it did sound silly.

Though perhaps not so much as believing that Iruka was a crocodile wrestling, eucalyptus demon dodging, pet tarantula saving, mountain climbing, riddle solving, clumsy toast burner who tripped while running with scissors.

Iruka made a choked sound suspiciously like a giggle when he heard the run-down. "Ha," he rubbed his eyes, which were tearing with mirth. "I had forgotten about some of those. I used to be really creative."

"But not now?" Kakashi inquired.

The teacher shrugged. "I'm busy. Papers to grade and troublemakers to thwart. Mostly I just alternate between falling meteors and shuriken mishaps."

The jounin blinked. Right. Then, deliberately quietly, he leaned forward and murmured, "Perhaps it was your choice in friends. I hear that you were close to that traitor who provoked Naruto to steal the forbidden scroll."

Suddenly Iruka was ice cold. "That's none of your business."

"Hm," Kakashi said, but even in that short breath Iruka had regained his composure.

Pausing to take a drink from his cup, the teacher murmured, "Meddlers inevitably meet an ugly end."

True, but the jounin was an even more insensate flirter with death than most. He took back up his thread of inquiry, making known his guesses while he watched Iruka carefully for any reaction. "It had to have been before your graduation, because people remember you with the scar as a pre-genin. It could have been the fox, but I'm starting to doubt it. Pre-fox is interesting or very boring. Childhood accident is boring. Deliberate injury, however..."

If there was one thing Kakashi knew, it was how to spot deliberate injury. He finished, "There just aren't a lot of places a little brat can get cut up like that and it not be an accident."

"You assume altogether too much." Iruka was beginning to stand.

Kakashi caught his wrist, demanding, "Tell me."

Iruka looked at him with eyes that seemed to grow deeper and wider as they anchored on him. Waves and a tide. His scar settled just beneath them like an outline, like an emphasis. Mystery. Vicious damage to a plain brown package. He said, "My father thought it would help him find me in a crowd."

Silence.

A grim little smile and Iruka asked, "Believe me?"

Kakashi wasn't sure if maybe he did.


	2. Unfamiliar Territory

**2. Unfamiliar Territory****  
**Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Sandaime  
Summary: A younger Iruka sits with a corpse behind enemy lines…and what a dubious line it is.

* * *

Iruka was sitting with his back against an oak, legs propped over a corpse of his own making. The sweet rot of autumn was all around him, mingled with the smell of dying, heavy in the air. Blood was smeared against the tree bark, against the earth itself, and – seeping there – against the skin of both nin. Iruka fingered it, drying on his fingertips.

Distantly, he knew that he was in shock. He was cold and trembling. His limbs were locking up and he could barely feel his legs. Depression came like a wave, but one he knew well. There was always a let down, always that moment when the adrenaline withered and he was left facing the reality of what he'd done.

He looked at the battlefield. It looked like all the others, and he had seen many others. Dead eyes, like his eyes, looked back at him from his former opponent, and he thought, _'This isn't what I want. I wasn't made for this.'_

He didn't want to be made for this.

His gaze fell once again to the man, his enemy. Alive and unwounded, he had tried to gut Iruka against this tree. But dying he had gripped his vest tight, and wouldn't let go. He'd begged before he died. He had a little daughter. Iruka had her soft pink ribbon wrapped tight as a tourniquet around a finger on his right hand. He hadn't been able to drive a kureni through the man's throat to shut him up.

Now the body was turning cold beneath him. Iruka reminded himself that this was the life of a shinobi. It was duty, not murder. Feeling lost, he reached and petted the dead man's hair. He'd have to burn the bodies of friend and foe alike. There would be nothing left, not even a husk, for the living.

Stiff and alone, Iruka forced himself to his feet. He pulled his kureni between sandal and sand as he stood, scouring away the blood. The blade glistened, and he laughed a soft, toneless laugh. The blood was ground in his skin, but the steel would come clean. Irony.

Above him the wind stirred, and the leaves fell around his face like warm hands. He had to finish his work and leave this place. Lingering in enemy territory was asking to die.

_Die. _Iruka laughed again, soundless as a corpse. This wasn't where he belonged, he knew it. And if he didn't get out soon, it would be more than just his body joining the dead.

* * *

The Sandaime sat behind his desk, taking in the rigid youth before him. "Are you certain? You realize some will consider it cowardly, even traitorous."

Iruka might well have been a statue. "I'm not asking to be excused from my oath. I am simply asking to be given different tasks."

"Others will not see it that way." The Sandaime closed his eyes briefly. His hands strayed to a particular folder on his desk, and he weighed it in one hand. "But, perhaps it _is_ best that you be taken of active duty. I've received some uneasy reports from your surviving teammates. And there are fewer of those than there should be, Iruka."

Nothing, the youth was mute.

Sandaime continued, "They say you're sympathetic to the enemy. They worry, because you and your family were foreign born."

Iruka's head came up, his eyes flashing. "I am Konoha."

"They question your loyalty to this village."

"It isn't disloyal to pray for a dead soul. They were _people_ as well as enemies." Iruka was clinching a pretty pink ribbon in one hand as he spoke.

The hokage pretended not to notice. Instead, he fixed Iruka with a long, hard look. "I'm taking you out of the mission circuit. I wanted to believe you would grow out of his childishness, that the reports about your softness of character were exaggerated. It's a pity." He shook his head. "But, you're dangerous – this attitude of yours is dangerous." When Iruka stayed silent, he sighed. Once more, he tried to change Iruka's mind: "It will disqualify you from any promotion."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

Silence, for a long time. Then, finally, Sandaime said, "I'm assigning you to the academy."

"The academy?"Bitterness and hope clawed across Iruka's expression before it became blank again.

"It is a reduction in pay. It is a _permanent_ reduction in status."

A punishment. Yes, Iruka understood. Yet he stood unmoved.

That was it then. "Very well. You're dismissed."

The young man turned to go.

"Iruka?"

Obediently, he stopped. "Yes?"

"You know that there will be extenuating circumstances. When the occasion arises, I refuse to ignore…particular talent."

Iruka's head bowed, shielding his eyes. "Of course." Nothing else, though it felt like a condemnation.

"Just go, Iruka." He'd almost made it to the door before Hokage called out again. "Iruka?"

Old, old eyes stared at the young man's straight, stubborn back. The Sandaime grinned a secret grin.

"Good luck, son."

A flicker of hesitation, and then Iruka was gone. Twining his fingers together, the old man sat alone and thought about the choice just made. Part of him could not be surprised.

Iruka was unconventional. He'd always, always chosen the strangest road. He heaved an affectionate laugh, thinking of a golden haired curse upon their village, and of a single soul who somehow, inexplicably, loved him.

The same soul who wasn't at home doing what he'd been taught for a lifetime. Odd, odd Iruka. And he was glad. For compassion to become an unfamiliar thing…perhaps even the greatest ninja village should grieve.

The Sandaime turned back to his paper work.


	3. Calendar Day

**3. Calendar Day**

Character/relationship: Iruka-sensei, Naruto  
Summary: Iruka is confronted with Naruto, whose innocent questions have only hard answers for them both.

* * *

It was a warm, breezy morning, promising a fair summer day. Iruka had woken lazily – no classes – and moved to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Rubbing his eyes, he pulled down two bowls and two cups for the table. He knew better than to believe he would only need one.

His weekends were rarely exciting anymore. Assuming he had no field assignments, he usually prepared for classes. Sometimes he met Mizuki, but lately his friend had been dispatched more frequently. Iruka had few other acquaintances his own age, and so usually he worked.

It was lonely sometimes, but it wasn't as though he were entirely alone. He peeked up at the bowl sitting across the table, and at the empty chair behind it. He was late today. Hm.

Oh well. Today was a grading day.

Alternately munching and marking through his papers, Iruka passed the moments. A perk of awareness caused him to blink, but he was careful to give no outward reaction. Nonchalantly, he turned his back to the door and ducked his head over his task.

The child was only the barest of amateurs in the shinobi arts, and his footsteps seemed heavy and loud. However, the game itself was cute, and Iruka pretended not to notice. Pretended, until a great noisy thumping erupted behind him and he felt twenty-five pounds of baby flesh hurl into him wildly. He felt the child squeezing as tightly as such small arms could manage. A warm little face buried itself under his arm. "Caught you!" he crowed.

Feigning surprise and anger, Iruka groaned. "Naruto," he scolded. "You snuck up on me again."

"Hee," the little boy replied, squinting up at him with his best kitsune grin.

Iruka leaned against the table with one elbow. "And what are you doing here?"

"Hungry."

Iruka made his face look uncaring. "You think I'm going to feed you?" And, ignoring the dismay on the small face, he turned back to his papers.

"Aw, Ruka-sensei!" Naruto cried. When tugging against the youth's sleeve did nothing, he gave a theatrical wail. "Sensei!"

"What?"

Blue eyes stared, fixed on him like pleading vessels. "Breakfast?"

The farce ended. "Alright, alright," Iruka said as he stood, going to pull a cereal box from the cabinet and carrying it to the table. Playfully, he fought off little hands and poured the brat a bowl. "Good morning to you too."

By that time, Naruto's mouth was too full of cereal to respond. When they finished, Iruka looked up to find Naruto wearing a very serious expression. That was new, he thought with some trepidation. Naruto had hitherto shown only a very few real emotions – anger, delight, wild joy, and the occasional (very occasional) outright misery of the very young. This looked like none of those things, but it was closer to the last than he was comfortable with.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Naruto wants to talk about Ruka-sensei."

Iruka blinked down on him fondly. He'd been talking like that for days now, referring to himself in third person. Personally, he assumed it was just a short-lived phase, a vie for attention. It drove the other instructors to distraction.

"Okay." He sat his spoon down expectantly. "What about…Iruka-sensei…would you like to talk about?"

"He's not my papa."

For a moment Iruka froze, the words were so unexpected. "No. I'm not, Naruto."

Blinking, brooding, fussing, fidgeting. "He's not my papa, but he's not my brother either."

"No," Iruka agreed. "We're not related. I told you that when we met, remember?"

Naruto nodded, looking unhappy.

"What made you think of this?" Iruka asked. He'd known it would come up, but Naruto was still so young.

The little boy wiggled in his chair. "Gaisuke-sensei told class yesterday, says today is papa's day. But you aren't my papa. He's in heaven."

Iruka didn't see the issue. He'd forgotten the holiday himself. It had been a while since he'd celebrated it. "Are you missing your father, Naruto?" he asked.

The child gave a non-committal twinge that was neither a nod nor a declination.

"What is it then?"

"You aren't my papa," Naruto said. Then he wailed, "But there isn't a Ruka-sensei Day!"

The surprise Iruka felt was almost as strong as before. "W-what –"

A small, poorly folded card, offered two handed, staled his halting words. Chin on the table, Naurto muttered, "Made it for Ruka-sensei, anyway. Gaisuke-sensei was mean, but I stuck my tongue out at him."

Iruka didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Oh, Naruto," he muttered, gazing at it. "This is very nice."

"Like it?"

Tears would have been shameful, so Iruka blinked determinedly until the stinging stopped. Looking up into hopeful blue eyes, he called, "Come here."

Naruto ran eagerly to his arms. To him it was his own special place - warm, safe, and his. Iruka wasn't his papa, but sometimes he wished that he was. Naruto thought he would be good at it, even if Iruka was too young. Sometimes he pretended, but it was a secret.

He looked up to see if Iruka was still looking at his card, but his teacher was staring out the window in a distracted way. Naruto watched him tuck the folded, crayon-colored paper into his vest with very special care. It was his chuunin vest, and it had lots of pockets on the inside; Naruto loved to try and find them all.

Iruka had other plans. Setting the child on the floor, he said, "Let's go somewhere special."

* * *

There was someone there already when they arrived, so Iruka and Naruto waited quietly for the figure to finish their prayers. Naruto wasn't very good at waiting, and he fidgeted on the wide tree branch where they stood. Iruka held onto the back of his collar, steadying him on their perch.

Finally, they moved for their turn at the memorial. To Iruka, the stone was immortality. It rose out of the earth as though it had always been there, and always would. Its hallowed, engraved surface was worn smooth from the caresses of fingertips over much loved names. Most days the space was reverentially clear of debris, but today there were small offerings.

The soft tinkling of little bells made the place seem even more restive, and the smell of flowers tucked into the base almost made him forget what this all stood for.

Naruto's small hand slid out of his and stretched tentatively toward the stone. "What is this, Ruka-sensei?"

The young man looked at him. He would be too small to remember the visit, but maybe it would comfort him. "Your mama and papa are on here somewhere. All Konoha's heroes are put on here when they die."

Blue, blue eyes opened wide. "Which names are they?"

"I don't know. But somewhere."

The child marveled over the idea for a long moment, tracing the monument as so many had before him. Then, he asked, "Where are your mama and papa's names?"

Pain, like a claw digging inside him. This memorial was only for Konoha nin. Sometimes Iruka wondered if they would put his own name on the stone when he was finally killed. The flashing gold of Naruto's hair drew his eyes amidst the gloom of his own thoughts, and he smiled faintly at the reminder. He wasn't dead yet.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a tiny silver bell on a string, and watched with pleasure and amusement at the way the shiny object drew the eyes of the little boy. Naruto had it in-between his paws almost instantly.

Iruka chuckled, "Would you like to leave a bell for your papa and say a prayer?"

Naruto nodded and pressed his hands together before him semi-reverently, squinting at the rock. "Pray for papa, that you remember me from heaven," he spoke to the man he had never known. "Wish you were here too, but don't worry a'cause Ruka-sensei says he'll take care of me." The child's voice petered off for a moment. He looked rather longingly at the memorial. His uncertainty was palpable, and he finished quickly, "Missing you loads and-I-love-you-papa-but-goodbye, okay?"

More misplaced tears that had to be fended off as the old grief came like a wave. Iruka thought, _'Yes, missing you, Father. Always.'_

A hand, tugging at his vest. Untroubled, Naruto looked up without qualm or grief He said, "Ruka-sensei, I'm hungry. Is it lunchtime yet?"

Iruka took hold of the small fingers poking and pulling. "Yes, yes," he answered. "Do you think of nothing but food? Lunchtime."

Naruto clapped his delight out loud. So easily pleased. He held his hands up high. "Carry me."

How could Iruka say no?

Happily settled in the arms he loved best, scarcely aware that they weren't the right ones, Naruto asked again, "Did you like my card a lot, Ruka-sensei?"

"Oh yes, very much." Iruka nodded. "It was the best I've ever had."

"Good, because Naruto worked very hard on it."

Iruka smiled. "I'm sure he did."


	4. Professional Curiosity

**3. ****Professional Curiosity**  
Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Kakashi, Asuma, Genma, Raido, Iwashi  
Summary: Iruka-sensei provokes a conversation between jounin.

* * *

It was the day that Iwashi had been made tokubetsu jounin, and a group of his new cohort had taken him out to celebrate. Sake had followed dinner, and soon all of them were feeling more loquacious than usual. It was late enough in the evening that the crowd had faded into the comfortable hum of regular patrons, most of whom were settled around low tables, drinking or chatting.

It was because of the relative quiet that they were able to spot the teacher. He slipped in through the door and moved to the front, chatting briefly with the keeper at the bar. He seemed so strangely out of context, and they so moved past their normal state of propriety, that they couldn't help but call him over.

"Sensei! What are you doing here?"

Iruka paused upon hearing his name called, but grinned when he recognized fellow shinobi. His amiable look faded slightly when he saw their advanced state of debauchery, but he mellowed when he noticed the newest jounin amidst them.

"The owner here is the father of one of my students," he explained his presence. "She was sick today, so I came to drop off her work."

Raido squinted toward the bar in the dim light. "Really? I didn't know this place was run by shinobi."

Iruka smiled politely. "It's not. I tutor in the civilian community from time to time. Speaking of teaching, though," He turned to address Asuma. "How are your students, Asuma-san?"

"Lazy as hell," the man replied without thinking.

The sudden coldness of Iruka's stare silenced the table. After a pause, the teacher said, "When I saw them last week, they mentioned a training exercise they were looking forward to."

"Yeah," came Asuma's slightly uneasy response. The former guard-nin made a gesture with his hands as though wielding his trench knives. "Basic charka infusion, you know. I'm showing them tomorrow."

Iruka's eyes moved around table with its scattered bottles of sake. "I certainly hope you weren't planning to teach them weapons techniques while you're inebriated," he said, and while the tone was anything but disrespectful, it somehow managed to carry the message: _'You had _better_ not be planning it.'_

Helpfully, Genma chimed in, saying, "He won't be drunk by then, Sensei – just a little hung-over."

This served to bring the whole table under the level, deeply censorious gaze. "I see," Iruka said, and as one their insides shrunk.

Struggling under the weight of it, Raido attempted to smooth over his friend's error in judgment. "Er, Sensei, would you like to join us for a drink?"

"No thank you," Iruka said. "I should go. Classes tomorrow."

His statement seemed to hold the whole weight of their irresponsibility over their heads. He stood over them for a moment longer, until they were sufficiently reduced to sheepish disgrace. Then he nodded deferentially to them all, though he paused once more to smile at their newest associate.

By way of farewell, he said, "Congratulations on your promotion, Iwashi."

The group gave a collective shudder once the chuunin sensei had departed.

"He's half my size and he makes me feel about five," Asuma commented when he was clear. "Freaking scary-school-teacher-no-jutsu."

He wasn't serious, but others obvious wondered.

"How does he do that?" Genma wanted to know. He looked across the table at their reclining, silver-haired companion for confirmation. "It isn't charka."

"No," Kakashi shook his head. Almost self-depreciatingly, he admitted, "I checked once. Peeked through a window into his class."

It was outrageous enough to leave them all sputtering with laughter. Raido rubbed his sides, "Really?"

"I was interested," Kakashi said. "He reminded me of an interrogator I knew from Cloud. Master or projection and intimidation."

"Even the most simple-minded genin can project emotion," Genma scoffed.

Kakashi didn't bother to argue. "In any case, Iruka-sensei isn't using any kind of jutsu." He tapped his covered eye idly, and no further questions on the matter were asked.

For a moment, Iwashi believed the subject would be dropped, but Kakashi's remarks had inadvertently started a debate. Asuma leaned forward. "How _would_ you fight him?"

"I would slit his throat," Kakashi deadpanned.

Iwashi choked on a mouthful of alcohol, and Genma banged his back. Hardly befitting a freshly minted jounin. Blushing, he stammered, "It's just…why?"

"A man like Iruka-sensei would make his death costly," Kakashi explained. "I wouldn't give him a chance to show me what a shinobi who's been a chuunin for half his life is really capable of. Better to kill him quickly."

"I've known men to still pull a jutsu while they're bleeding from the neck," Raido commented.

Asuma nodded thoughtfully. Rubbing out a cigarette on the already scarred table-top, he coughed and offered, "Better to put your hand through his chest."

Genma shook his head. "Still not fast enough. The Sandaime used to send me to Umino when I had a question about exploding tags."

There was an interested murmur as that information was considered and weighed into the imaginary scenario. Iwashi felt his stomach roll just a bit. He told himself it was because he'd had too much to drink, but if he were honest, he would admit he thought it a little morbid to be discussing one's own comrades this way.

"They're only your friends until they're not," Asuma said, peering into Iwashi's face as though he'd read his thoughts there. The other jounin around the table exchanged looks of varying sobriety. They'd all known men who'd gone renegade. Sometimes shinobi left, and sometimes they ran mad.

"But…Umino?" Genma asked. He pitched his voice to seem amused and incredulous, which broke the reverie enough that the group allowed themselves to chuckle.

All except Iwashi and Kakashi.

Genma was speaking again, his eyes crinkling as he peered over the rim of his reclaimed glass, loosely dangling from the tips of his entwined fingers. "Really. He may be uniquely fearsome, but he's still just an academy sensei."

"That's an idea," someone suggested. "One of the children?"

"He'd rip your throat out with his teeth," Asuma said. He took a long gulp of his drink, then grinned, wolfish. "You'd be dead before you could draw blood, just by force of his personality."

Iwashi, who'd only interacted with the teacher infrequently, commented, "He seems pretty mild mannered to me."

The whole table snorted over their cups. Genma guffawed so loudly that a denizen from a nearby table stirred long enough gesture rudely in their direction.

"You've seen him fight, haven't you, Asuma?" Raido inquired. "I thought you two were on a team once."

Asuma shook his head, lighting a fresh cigarette. "Escort mission. Me and Tanaka went with him as far as **Suihou**, near Wave. Then we hung around for two weeks. When he came back, we took him home."

"Wave country," Raido looked contemplative. "He's from there, right? But a jounin and chuunin team wouldn't have been dispatched for a family visit."

Asuma shook his head. "No, it was something else. He was wounded when he came back. It was strange. He wouldn't let us tend his injuries before we left, and when we got back to the village, Ibiki came to collect him."

The group sunk into reflection. Iwashi thought that Kakashi, who had been largely uncommunicative to this point, looked especially thoughtful. It was Genma who broke the mood once more, flicking the metal spine upward with his teeth. "Stuff like that," he said. "That's why I'd put a senbon through his heart."

He proceeded to lean heavily against Iwashi's shoulder, squinting into his face just a little blearily. He'd been drinking steadily all night, here under the watch of his trusted companions. "It's not about honor. Fair fight?" He shook his head. "We're nin."

When Genma didn't seemed inclined to elaborate, Asuma took up the thread. He advised Iwashi, "Genma is right, kid. Iruka-sensei seems harmless. A desk-working chuunin-sensei. Surely any of us here could take him. But – like most enemies you'll face – we've never seen him fight, and do you really want to find out how many limbs he can take off you before you kill 'em? A baby strapped with explosives could kick your ass. Go with the quickest route to victory, and maybe you'll see thirty."

"Umino, though," Raido commented, flexing one of the cheap chopsticks disregarded on their finished dishes. "He's interesting."

"He was a protégé of the Third, I've heard," Iwashi contributed.

Genma snorted. "The Third adopted everyone."

"But he had particular interest in Umino, they say," Raido qualified. "And that he knows Ibiki –"

"Quiet." It was Kakashi, and his command sliced through everyone's talk. His one visible eye was sharp. "Whatever is up with Iruka-sensei, it isn't our business."

"Kakashi," Genma began, as though the other was acting silly.

"Perhaps we should talk about your secrets, then," the copy-nin snapped in a rare show of temper, and Genma's mouth shut abound his senbon mid-protest.

Disquieted, Raido wondered, "You think it could compromise him?"

By that time Kakashi's lassitude had superseded his show of irritation, and he only shrugged one shoulder. Those with him were left to form their own conclusions. Iwashi looked across the table at the copy-nin. Reflecting back on the comments that had been passed around that night, he considered what he'd learned.

The others – jounin all – respected Umino-sensei enough to kill him quickly. And Kakashi respected him enough to guard his privacy. A slow smile spread across his face. Without knowing anything else about the teacher, Iwashi thought that he might respect Umino for the regard he had already from legends.


	5. War and Peace

**5. War and Peace**  
Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Tsunade, Konohamaru  
Summary: When the village hierarchy shifts, Iruka is called in to make account to his new Hokage.

* * *

In a ninja village, Iruka decided, war and peace was determined by just how many people were bleeding for it. With some bitterness, he sometimes wondered if there was an established ratio.

This bitterness bled over into bile especially badly on those days when he was called before the Hokage to catalogue the potential uses of the tools he was training – for his little students who still presented him with scrapped knees and paper cuts, and who rubbed their snotty noses into the fabric of his pants. It was these he was duty bound to present.

Tsunade was less kind about it than the Third had been. Iruka wasn't in her confidence, though because of his position she was occasionally obliged to consult with him. However, she didn't like him, and possibly she sensed he was dangerous. That, at least, was to her credit, because in a way that few people understood, Iruka was. And he was teaching that danger to his students.

"Iruka-sensei." When he came in she greeted him without standing, which he found somewhat rude. Instead, he was immediately gestured toward a stiff wooden chair before her desk. She was looking over a folder the mossy green color that marked the personal records of the village's upper-level nin.

It made Iruka's eyes narrow to see it there, because it was not a file of children. Was this was a personal evaluation, then?

He bowed respectfully to her before taking his seat and waiting to be addressed. He might have asked, but waiting seemed more prudent for the moment. She didn't make him wait long. With the air of one who is only begrudgingly fulfilling a task, she smiled at him in a brief, businesslike way, and said, "Sensei. I know that we usually only see one another about your students, but I have a different topic to discuss with you this time."

Iruka remained tight lipped, waiting.

She frowned when she saw that he would not respond to anything she didn't ask him directly. It reflected in her voice, which quickly lost all traces of casual welcome. She addressed him again as his leader, the head of his village. Coy, but equally cold, she said, "I understand that you don't go on many missions, Iruka."

That was wasn't precisely true, and it made Iruka burn just a bit, because if she had his file then she knew what role he was sometimes called on to play.

"In fact, it seems like you haven't been on the active list since you were…fifteen-years-old?" She asked it as though it was a question, looking up at him inquiringly.

He sat like a stone, uninterested in her game. All the details lay directly before her, underneath her carefully tapping nails. He felt an unexpected surge of betrayal seeing her with all his most private and important secrets – betrayal, that Sarutobi would so casually put his life in her hands. However, even as he experienced the feeling, he knew it wasn't fair. One couldn't blame a person for being dead. Or at least if one could, it wouldn't make any difference.

Quietly, just safely below a hiss, he answered his new lord, "You know what I do." She was the Hokage. Unless she was trying to punish him, he didn't understand why she was doing this. Then suddenly it struck him, and he was filled with coldness.

'_Is it because you would like me to see me dead?'_ he wondered. Then more certainly: _'You would like me dead for what I know.'_

Tsunade's russet eyes had become deadly serious. "I do not have the same confidence in a little chunin with your supposed specialization that the Sandaime did, and as the protector of this village I would be recalcitrant not to have some doubt. I don't want to have to make a mission out of ending the life of one of our villages most beloved teachers –"

_Message: your reputation and the problems it would cause me to dispose of you provide you some leeway._

She continued, "But you would be well mourned, if that is any comfort to you."

_Message: But not so much that it would stop me, paperwork, suspicion, and sentiment be damned._

She would wipe a hundred snotty noses and field dozens of narrow-eyed inquiries that his friends and colleagues might ask if he were to have an unexpected accident. And while she might have a harder time than she suspected selecting wholly impartial shinobi to carry out her discreet request, she could and would.

"Should I be waiting for someone sent to dispatch me?" he asked calmly.

It would serve her right if she underestimated him so much as to send a lower-level nin. He loved his village, and he was prepared to die for it, but he would not be passively slaughtered. ANBU might be overkill, he decided, but he knew too many of the regular jounin. They might do it, but they would hold it against her. The last thing Tsunade needed was dissent in her upper-ranks on top of the administrative issues she had already.

A raw, bitter kind of smile wormed it's way onto his lips. That would, he reflected, at least be an ironic kind of revenge. The part of him that considered without prejudice knew that Tsunade would likely be one of Konohagakure's great leaders, but no one ever said that taking over an empire was easy. A ninja village wasn't any easier to manage than any other kind of bureaucracy, and her effectiveness as a leader would be made or broken in these early days as she organized her leadership.

Tsunade was frowning deeply as she took in his grin. "Perhaps I haven't been sufficiently clear," she began.

"No, you have been perfectly clear," Iruka interrupted, with just enough slur to show the displeasure he felt finding himself here. "You would like me permanently out of the way, or at least you are contemplating it. But, unless I have overestimated you and you have very, very badly misjudged the extent of my loyalty," – '_Because I will fight,_' he thought – "Then you haven't brought me here to give me forward warning."

No, she would have merely lead him off with an escort on some innocuous delivering or fetching mission, and he'd never have returned. Clearly, she had something else in mind.

A slight curl of her fingers indicated that, in some way at least, she had underestimated him. However, she would have no mercy from his quarter. The grand leader of Konohagakure should have wagered there was a reason her predecessor had entrusted him with what he had. He asked, "What is it exactly that you want?"

A displeased but shrewd look had overtaken her face. It, at least, was frank. She was ready to be forthright with him. "The former Hokage left behind a great number of encrypted works, including his personal journals and contacts. Your name was among those we managed to decipher."

Ah. That was it, then. Not very subtle of her to just assume. But it wasn't completely unfounded. He didn't have the codes for the journals, but he could probably figure them out, if he hadn't been outright included in the seals. Obviously, she and her people hoped the same – that the documents would simply unfold before him. He hated to disappoint her, but found himself withdrawing his curse upon the Third's ghost.

'_Was this your way of protecting me?'_ he wondered.

As though she sensed the turn of his thoughts, Tsunade leaned forward, so he was forced into a dangerous meeting with her eyes. She warned, "There is a hard way to do this, Iruka."

He had to swallow hard to prevent a smirk from rising to his face; this whole situation seemed surreal. He'd heard those words before, but now he was sitting in the office of his Hokage, in his own village with the sun shining. Something of his feelings must have shown, because a line drew down her long, elegant face. She folded her hands, frowning gravely.

"So be it."

He stood, just as two nin materialized at either side of him and took hold of his arms. They did so lazily, and he obliged them by not struggling. They would treat him as a traitor for the time being, but he would go like a Konoha shinobi. He wondered what Tsunade thought she had to gain from this, then considered the possibility that his file did not include the fact that he had done this before.

* * *

In a strange way, it had been nice to catch up with Ibiki again, even if it was in a semi-professional capacity. He hadn't known the man had taken on a protégé, but he valued the youth's good, clean twist when he'd snapped his arm out of place. It had hurt, but had been easily corrected afterward; a perfect friendly-fire technique for those times it wouldn't do to cripple your subject.

The interrogator had seemed a little sad to see him again, if such a thing could be told from the studied blankness of his face. Unlike before, this time hadn't been for training or conditioning. It was Ibiki's duty to fulfill his objective, though in the end Iruka couldn't decide if he was more disappointed to have failed, or glad he had taught his former student so well.

Either way, the man offered him a small smile when they were finally through with him. "I don't expect to see you around here for a while, Sensei," he said.

Iruka's smile in return had been bleary, but beatific. "Something like a test?" he guessed.

"Something like," Ibiki grunted. Then, more cautiously, "Be careful. Things aren't as they once were."

He couldn't have been more right.

* * *

"Iruka-sensei, what happened to your arm?"

The round eyes that accompanied this question were awed and just a little horrified. The voices and expressions of his class echoed it, in varying degrees. Konohamaru, for all his occasional foolishness, was a sharp boy, and he was looking particularly disquieted.

Iruka took his time to maneuver around the knot of his favorite class of students and settle gingerly at his desk. His joints ached rather badly today, and he knew that he looked rather worse for wear. "I'm fine," he comforted them all. "I'm just getting old and had a little misstep."

It wasn't an outright lie, and he watched their reactions with a teacher's keen interest. The ones who were ready to understand did, and it left him wondering about the nature of tests in general. They could conceal as much as they showed; about intentions, of course, among other things.

However, for his part, he felt that Tsunade must have decided that there were bigger fish to fry. Likely she still didn't trust him, and might well make good on her veiled threat to put him back on the active list. It wasn't an altogether unreasonable request in any case. After all, the Hidden Villages were always at the edge of something like war.

Still, he wondered…

"Sensei." It was Konohamaru, tugging on his sleeve and looking at him with conflicted, dark eyes. He asked, "Sensei. You're really alright, aren't you?"

Iruka considered the boy's intuition and found that he couldn't really be surprised. This was the grandson of the man who had led their village for several decades, after all. If any of them could begin to understand the politics involved in a regime change, it would be Konohamaru. Iruka smiled gently at the worried little boy, surrounded by other small faces and warm hands. His kids.

"I'm fine, Konahamaru," he reassured his student.

And he was. He'd chosen his profession to remind him what he was fighting for.


	6. The Jungle

**6. The Jungle****  
**Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Konohamaru, Tsunade, Ebisu

Summary: Konohamaru attends a political function in the wake of his grandfather's death.

* * *

Konohamaru stood at the periphery of a great agglomeration of important people, wary of getting too close and positively dreading being addressed. All around him, men and women of tremendous political power and distinction milled, all in their most incomparable finery. Every one of them had traveled here to be a part of this historical event, the traditional reforming of treaty throughout Fire Country.

The hall was filled with murmured platitudes in carefully worded undertones as the politicos worked their own kind of jutsu. Below the benignity, Konohamaru knew they were as carefully masked as the ANBU guards posed along the walls, though they were disguised with polite smiles and affected dignity rather than porcelain.

The effect was a deleterious atmosphere that even a child like Konohamaru could recognize, and it pressed on him like an oppressive smoke. It wasn't that he was unfamiliar with such gatherings. After all, he was the former Hokage's grandson. However, he had never been to one alone. Always, before, he had gone with his grandfather.

The memory was enough to make his stomach churn, and he forced himself to swallow, feeling like a much younger child. If he'd been less brave, the feeling of vulnerability might have caused his eyes to burn…

"Konohamaru. Well, look at you."

A familiar voice interrupted his miserable reverie, and Konohamaru pivoted to face the man who had come up behind him. "Iruka-sensei!" he greeted, feeling weak with relief.

His teacher's appearance here shouldn't really have been such a surprise. Konohamaru had often seen Iruka at these functions before, possibly as the guest of his grandfather, though he'd never asked. He was glad to see Sensei now.

"You look nice," Iruka-sensei commented.

Konohamaru picked unhappily at his formal wear. The folds were a deep navy blue that Ebisu-sensei said complemented his complexion. He'd been divested of his scarf and headgear for the night, and instead his messy brown tresses had been brushed until they lay as flat as they knew how, framing his face. Iruka petted an errant snaggle into place.

"I can't say that it suits you," he admitted. "But you do look very handsome, Konohamaru."

The boy didn't want to acknowledge the compliment. Instead he hunched his shoulders and folded his arms. But because it was Iruka-sensei and – he thought begrudgingly – because it was true, he huffed, "You look nice too."

And he did, even though Konohamaru thought Sensei looked strange without his flack jacket and standard blue ninja apparel. His long hair had been done up neatly at the back of his head as usual, though without the forehead plate the overall effect was much softer. His formal kimono was jade and burgundy, and was wrapped around him with a loose, natural elegance that the youngster knew he lacked.

Iruka lifted his head to watch the miasma. "What a grand event," he commented, though to his student it sounded just a little wry. Then, grinning somewhat wickedly, his teacher teased, "Though _you_ look about as happy to be here as I am."

The words were unexpected, but when Konohamaru looked for an explaination, he found that Iruka-sensei's expression was amused but otherwise unreadable. Thinning his lips and looking put-upon, Konohamaru explained, "The Hokage ordered me to be here."

"I see," Iruka commented, but he didn't seem surprised. To Konohamaru, he actually sounded grim. However, it was with just an edge of reproach that Iruka warned, "You should speak of her with a more respectful tone."

Resentment and anger flared up in Konohamaru like a bright little fire. He wanted to demand, "Why should I?"

As though sensing his feelings, Iruka frowned, keeping his voice between the two of them. "Whatever one might think about the machinations involved in a regime change, it's a ninja's duty to show deference to their Lord. And Tsunade is both a consummate warrior and a very capable leader, Konohamaru."

Iruka flexed the fingers of his left hand as he spoke, and Konohamaru remembered that until yesterday his arm had been in a sling due to the unconfirmed courtesy of their new Hokage. And even if the boy had been willing to forgive her for everything else, he wasn't sure he could ever forgive her for that.

Iruka caught the direction of his gaze and drew his hand self-consciously up his long, loose-fitting sleeve. Gently, he chided, "Don't scowl like that, Konohamaru. Holding grudges hurts no one but yourself."

Konohamaru tried to smooth his face, even if it hurt his heart. He still felt angry, but he admired his teacher's ability to say such a thing and mean it.

"I don't supposed there's much that either of us can do to escape," Iruka continued. He extended his hand for the boy to take. "But we can brave the night together, hm?"

Konohamaru found himself accepting without hesitation. Normally, he wouldn't want to be seen doing something so babyish as holding his sensei's hand, but tonight he felt especially small and lonely. It made him feel better to have an ally amidst such a jungle as this.

* * *

Konohamaru stayed by Iruka's side throughout the night, alternating between gripping his ready hand and hovering in his shadow. Often, the older man would stoop just a little and tell him about the important people they encountered. Before long, the boy was awed by the complexity of the interconnected tribes, villages, and clans represented. Furthermore, it amazed him how his sensei could go on and on about them in an unbothered cascade, like reading a laundry list.

"That is Sato Tadashi, from the lower country. A wicked, ill-tempered brute," Iruka commented, inclining his head slightly to point one man out in the crowd. "Your grandfather was the first to form peaceful relations with him and his people, but he doesn't like me much, and he hasn't seen you since you were a baby, so I doubt he'll come over. They're here for a treaty reestablishment. Tsunade will want to make a good impression."

The two moved on. "Over there is Ueno Kujira, from the coast. I was born near his village." Iruka waved back at the cheerful, weather-beaten old man with pleasure.

The information took Konohamaru off-guard. "You weren't born in Konoha?" he asked.

"No. Didn't I ever tell you that?"

There were more greetings. Iruka-sensei was obviously well known and liked among the former Hokage's vast contacts, and he spoke to them all by name. An old grandmother swathed in pearls patted his cheek. Young men and old men broke away from stilted conversations to exchange a few earnest words and genuine smiles. At one point, a red-faced representative hailed him like a bear and then proceeded to smother him in an rib-cracking embrace. Iruka staggered afterward and Konohamaru giggled.

Sometime during the night, the two moved back toward the front of the room, taking a break from the noise and bustle. Konohamaru relaxed against his teacher's side, knowing better than to lean against a wall in his nice clothing. He didn't notice the large double doors sliding open, or the approaching footsteps.

"Iruka, here you are, and looking so fine," a voice said suddenly, and the tall, majestic form of the legendary Godaime loomed up beside them as though out of thin air. Her charka thrummed around her, draped like a robe. It was as intimidating as barred fangs to any ninja, and a physical, invisible press of power to those who were not. It made her seem both regal and dangerous.

Konohamaru had flinched at her sudden appearance, but Iruka bowed smoothly and without hesitation. "Hokage-sama. It's a pleasure to see you this evening."

Tsunade nodded to him absently, but didn't acknowledge or return the polite niceties. Russet eyes flicked downward to rest on Konohamaru. A little coldly, she said, "I might have known I would find you two together."

Konohamaru growled at her. Why shouldn't they stay together? But before he could even begin to find words for such things, Iruka shot him a quelling look.

"Hm," the great woman spoke.

Konohamaru thought she looked at Iruka-sensei as though she might like to snap him in half. He wondered if maybe she could, and that scared him.

"It's good that you made it, Iruka," she went on after a moment. "I thought you were going to throw a tantrum when I asked you to be here."

Konohamaru glared, upset that she would talk to Iruka-sensei as though he were a little kid, but Iruka only bowed a second time, his face perfectly impassive. "As you ordered, Hokage-sama" he said, and Konohamaru suddenly realized that he was also here at her behest.

Finished with her appraisal, Tsunade waved gracefully at a group of people across the room. As she strode away, she called back to them, "Don't make too much trouble, boys."

Then she was gone. Konohamaru was left seething, his little fists coiled as he watched her shift through the crowd and out of ear shot. Iruka's gentle hand on his shoulder quieted his rage. The teacher told him, "Enough. You're very brave, but I don't want you sabotaging your future in this village on my account."

Konohamaru bristled. "But she –"

"Yes, I know," Iruka said, and straightened. "And that's politics. She's only doing her job. To be Hokage, she needs control over this village and everyone in it. That's me, and you. Right now we're both troublesome to her."

Konohamaru crossed his arms and squashed his face into a look of the most petulant disapproval. "She doesn't have to be so mean," he insisted.

Iruka sensei grinned at him indulgently, even affectionately. His face looked so much younger and less guarded without his hitai-ate. He said, "Yes. I think you're right."

* * *

And so the evening reeled on, with the Sandaime's grandson following behind one of the old man's adopted souls, listening as his teacher spoke. At the academy, Iruka-sensei adjusted his fingers around shuriken. Here, he modeled handling words. There, students learned to survive in the midst of violence. Here, Konohamaru began to learn how to survive as the superseded son of what amounted to former royalty.

"Why do I need to know all this?" He found words for his confusion sometime in the night. "Grandpa… He isn't Hokage anymore." Grief clinched his young heart. He finished, "I'm just like everybody else."

"You're not like everybody else," Iruka told him. "You are a descendent of the Third Hokage, and just because power has shifted doesn't mean your family has completely lost influence. People will want to meet you for your whole life. You'll be entrusted with more than your classmates will ever be."

Just as the weight of these words began to press heavily on his young shoulders, Iruka went on. "Don't worry, Konohamaru. Responsibility will come one step at a time. And, for now at least, you don't have to figure it out all by yourself." More quietly, he explained, "Tsunade will show respect for the Third's family. She would be a fool not to, but really, I believe she means it. She's not really so terrible as she'd like us to believe."

Konohamaru thought she was a monster – a horrible ugly hag out to destroy his life. And she was doing a pretty good job of it. Iruka smoothed his hair, and it was a tender, almost familial gesture. He reminded the boy, "You will always be the Sandaime's grandson."

Konohamaru felt a welling of a timorous pride.

* * *

Very late in the evening, Konohamaru began drooping. His legs felt liquidy and weak, and he began to dream of the warm futon surely waiting for him, of his soft, comfortable nightclothes and clean sheets. He didn't realize he was sinking until he was suddenly scooped up into strong arms.

"I've got you," Iruka whispered, and Konohamaru blinked without protest, wrapping his arms around Sensei's neck.

On the walk home, he watched the night sky over Iruka's shoulder, studying the twinkling stars and listening to the heartbeat thrumming against his. "Sensei?" he asked.

"Yes, Konohamaru?"

"Everything's changing."

He felt the answering nod against the crown of his head. "It is. Everything's changing a lot."

"Are you afraid?"

"Sometimes I am. I worry about my students most of all. Some more than others." Iruka sighed, a soft exhale that stirred the boy's loose hair. "I wish I could be with you more now, but I have to be discreet for the moment." He adjusted his hold, which was just a little awkward since he was supporting the boy with only one arm.

"I'm a little scared," Konohamaru admitted, shivering. Everything was happening too fast.

Iruka patted his back. "Fear is natural, even healthy. Being brave is just keeping fear in perspective – making it a tool, not a barrier." Then, as an afterthought, he remarked, "You remind me a lot of Naruto."

Konohamaru grinned to himself. It was a grand compliment.

When they reached his home, a quietly frantic ninja opened the door even before Iruka knocked. Konohamaru thought how strange it was to see Ebisu-sensei without his dark shades even as the man held out eager arms. He felt the shuddering exhale once Ebisu finally had hold of him. He must have been worried.

Iruka nodded to the guardian. "Back safe and sound."

"Thank you," Ebisu-sensei said, sounding as though he meant it. Konohamaru waved as Iruka-sensei ducked into the night, but his eyes were sagging. He'd learned a lot tonight, and he was worn out, body and mind.

Ebisu-sensei pressed a broad hand into the back of his head as they passed through the hall towards his room, and Konohamaru snuggled more into the sheltering arms.

Things were changing, but, really, he was lucky. He wasn't alone.


	7. Waking to the Wind

**7. Waking to the Wind**

Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Naruto  
Summary: Naruto doesn't like his new apartment. It smells funny.

* * *

Iruka woke to fingers prying up his eyelids.

Warm, small fingers that were blearily familiar, followed by a stream of air blowing against his irises. Disoriented, he felt the weight straddling his chest, a bright flicker of untrained charka. It was constricting his breathing, hard on his sore ribs.

Rolling over on the mattress, Iruka moaned quietly, a sound barely heard over the louder squeak of protest when the movement tumbled off his seated guest. Iruka blinking owlishly at the tiny boy now ensconced in the tangle of blankets.

"Naruto?" he wondered. Mussing his hair sleepily, he slurred, "Why aren't you at your new apartment?"

He had dropped off the child there hours ago, just before finding a secluded part of the woods to punish away his frustration, and just _after_ arguing furiously with his Hokage one last time over having to leave the child to begin with.

The child's posture drooped, his flashing hair sallow and unspectacular in the shadowy light. "Don't like it," he murmured his protest. "It's smelly."

"It will start smelling like you in no time," Iruka comforted him.

Naruto looked helplessly around the familiar room before dragging up an armful of soft blanket to cover his face. His mumbled answer was muffled, but Iruka understood anyway. "But not like Ruka-sensei."

Iruka sighed, propping his chin against his hand. "Ah, Naruto. You know that you can't stay with me anymore."

"Why not?" came the pitiable whisper.

He tried to explain, again. "I'm going to be one of your real teachers now. And teachers aren't allowed to live with their students."

A plaintive wail. "Why?"

How could he explain something like that to a four-year-old? Firmly, he said, "They just can't, Naruto."

Naruto's face scrunched with misery. "It's not fair."

It wasn't, but it was out of Iruka's hands. The decision had been made in spite of his reasoning or his temper. And certainly not for lack of trying.

Pouting, Naruto continued, "Why did you have to be my sensei, then?"

Iruka wasn't sure himself. Something to do with his reluctance to kill things that supposedly deserved it. That had been one of the Sandaime's more wry remarks, trying to lower the tension during their rather jagged audience. The old man had argued that, because of Iruka's inhuman-compassion-for-things-that-breathe-no-juts u, Naruto's class would stand a higher chance of surviving until graduation.

When the subject had turned to Naruto himself, his mentor had spoken very reasonably. _"Aside from everything else, you're too young, Iruka."_

He remembered his returning argument, snapped somewhat less respectfully than the old man deserved: _"I have been taking care of children since I was ten years old."_

He might have deserved the Sandaime's answer, a reminder that tore him wide enough to seep old blood. _"Yes. And that did not turn out well."_

Barely anyone remembered the massacre of a small group of orphans during the Reconstruction, caught in the wake of a roving, maddened shinobi. Almost no one knew that the oldest had survived.

Iruka was brought back to the present by Naruto, his penitence, rubbing pitiful tears into his shirt. "Wanna stay with you," he begged.

Iruka stroked the roots of his hair, his own eyes burning traitorously. By the gods, this was so unnecessary. He cursed the Hokage again for his mercilessness.

Then Naruto's voice suddenly changed tenor, the plea subtly different. "I don't wanna go."

"To school?" Iruka was surprised when the boy nodded. "But you were so excited to go to the academy."

It hadn't been a sure thing. Iruka had argued strenuously to ensure that "the demon" had a place among his peers. They called him a demon, this diminutive, clinging child burying himself in the blankets, afraid of the first day of school. And Naruto was the monster.

"Why don't you want to go?"

Suddenly, Naruto's blue eyes were decades old. He spoke with damaged certainty. "No one will like me."

The admission stirred something in Iruka that he thought had been left behind in his own academy days. Sitting upright in the bed, he shifted so Naruto was sitting on his lap. He held the small chin so that they were looking directly at one another. "I need you to listen to me," he said. "Are you listening?"

When Naruto nodded, he continued, "Sometimes you just have to be strong by yourself. Sometimes people just aren't fair. And while they aren't fair, you have to forgive them and go on being strong."

It was a deep insight, maybe too deep for such an undeveloped, unspoiled mind. Yet, Naruto already knew all about the world not being fair. Now, as he faced this new part of his life, he needed to know something more.

Iruka smiled a little sadly at the child he had fostered. "You are so special, Naruto. You have a special purpose. I just know you're going to do great things. It's okay to be afraid," he told him, wiping away the drying streaks with the pads of his thumbs. "Just don't let it or anyone stop you."

Naruto looked up at him for a long moment before he crumpled, pressing his face into Iruka's chest. Mumbling into his night shirt, he asked, "But if I get tired, I can still come back?"

Iruka felt a thrill of fear, thinking of the Hokage and the disapproving faces of everyone he knew. Still he clutched the child, face set with defiance. "Yes, Naruto. There will always be a place for you with me."

Even if everyone else said no. Even if Naruto was never allowed to become a shinobi.

He finished, "You will always have a place here."

Iruka wasn't a parent, but Naruto was his most precious person, the only remnant he had of something like a family. As for Naruto, he'd never known anything else.

"I'll take you to school tomorrow," he soothed, and felt Naruto relax in his arms, his clenched muscles loosening as his worry dispersed. "I'll take you too school, and then afterwards we can move some things into your new apartment to make it feel more like home."

The feeling of a nose being rubbed against his nightshirt. "C-can I take the picture – the one of us?"

"Alright," he acquiesced.

"And Geoffrey?"

Geoffrey was a house plant in an electric green mop bucket. Iruka thought of the corner it would leave empty, right next to the vacant floorboards were a small futon would no longer be unfolded, and felt a wave of loneliness. "Yes. Geoffrey too."

The sniffles had turned into a wide yawn. Warm and content, his small problems solved, Naruto buried himself further into Iruka's arms. He said, "Okay."

Iruka settled back against the pillows, savoring this moment for just a while longer. Storing up the memory for when he was left with cold absence. He pulled the blankets back over them both.

A far away voice reached him on the edge of sleep, imparting a shy admission. "Love you," Naruto said.

Misery and happiness made war in Iruka. It must have shown in the way he stiffened, and in the burning wetness on his cheeks, because suddenly someone was rubbing his eyes with the heel of small fists. "Don't cry, Sensei," Naruto cooed, using his very best comforting voice. "I'll see you a lot."

"But I'll be lonely," Iruka played along, blinking now in dramatized sorrow.

"I'll come see you," the child promised.

"Everyday?"

There was a fervent nod, followed by a question. "You'll make ramens?"

"We'll go out tomorrow night," Iruka agreed, and Naruto wiggled before wrapping small arms as far around his guardian as they could go.

His request was barely audible: "I-I can stay?"

Tonight. Just for one more night. Iruka tucked Naruto's head under his chin, feeling the hum of blood and charka. "Love you," he whispered in the little ear, and drew a protective circle around him with his arms.

For one more night.


	8. Substitute Teacher

**8. Substitute Teacher****  
**Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Kakashi  
Summary: Kakashi brings illicit reading material into Iruka's class. This was a mistake.

* * *

Iruka would never understand how they chose substitute teachers. He wondered if all the acceptable candidates simultaneously dropped off the face of the earth, forcing them to draw from the most wretched pool of ridiculously inappropriate shinobi imaginable – and then to thrust said appalling role model on his most vulnerable classes of children.

He'd spoken to his superiors about it. Hell, he'd spoken to the Hokage about it. However, the former had just murmured something about making use of idle resources, and the Hokage had smirked at him.

All of this lead to Iruka's rationalization that he must never, ever get ill.

Generally, this worked well, except he did occasionally have to go on missions. This happened for a week, late one autumn. He'd left hasty but specific instructions, hoping against experience that at least part of his objectives might be accomplished. And then, worried but resigned, he left.

* * *

Kakashi wouldn't ever understand how they chose substitutes at the academy. He wondered if they took the names of all the nin in the village who most disliked children and rotated them in as some kind of perverse punishment.

How he hated Konoha's larvae progeny. After all, he wasn't a daycare provider. What a complete waste of time. He'd set fire to the drivel of instructions the teacher left behind on the first day.

"What did you do with them all week then?" Iruka asked him later.

Kakashi had felt a twinge of regret when he'd discovered it was Iruka's class he'd taken over. However, it was hardly a crisis of conscience; more a mild fear for his life. "Just what I'm doing now," he responded, flipping a page of his favored volume of Ichi Ichi nonsense.

Silence. Then, with a tinge of rage coloring his voice, Iruka asked, "You read that in front of the children?"

Kakashi should never have smirked in the teacher's face, or made that tasteless comment about teaching them how to be adults. He _definitely_ should never have leered afterward suggestively. And he _should_ have noticed the flush on Iruka's face, darkening his tan to a livid maroon.

Though whether or not the book would have been saved from the inferno of flame it erupted into was a mater of contention.


	9. House of Mirrors

**9. House of Mirror**  
Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Mizuki  
Summary: Mizuki patrols the night to find a friend. He thinks Iruka is crazy, but sometimes you don't need to understand everything to care.

* * *

Mizuki woke up with the feeling that something was wrong. It was late outside, or else very early. The star light was getting patchy, more grey than black in the nighttime. Sinking low, the moon winked among pale, drifting clouds.

He was wasn't a light sleeper, and extra-perception wasn't one of his skills. There was no way he should have been able to feel anything as subtle as unease, or even sorrow. But there were always exceptions.

Mizuki's exception was a brat just under his age with eyes that killed him to ignore. So here he was, awake, puzzled and blinking and all the time cursing because he already knew what was going on. Iruka was up to something.

It wasn't that his friend was mischievous, for all the fuss that he caused. Mizuki thought the whole charade foolish, and sometimes he said so, but Iruka usually just shrugged helplessly and tried not to look ashamed. Mizuki sometimes thought his friend was loosing it, and he told him that too.

None of this stopped him from going after him, though.

When Mizuki finally found Iruka, it was outside the walls. The trees rustled restlessly, whispering to one another, but they didn't bother him as he stood amidst their branches. A narrow river ran below him, and Iruka was sitting in the sand. The starlight danced with a sudden shift in cloud-cover, and Mizuki blinked through the unexpected sparkle. It took him a moment to find the source.

Mirrors, a rim of them. They glistened like watching eyes, braced in the sand. The dark blot in their center swayed slightly with the hum of the wind, but otherwise didn't move. Staring.

Jumping down, Mizuki shifted uncomfortably through the silver hedge. He knelt in front of his friend, looking into his face. Iruka's eyes were like waves, but today they were as flat and tepid as a tide pool. He stared straight past Mizuki, without recognition. Not even the increasing white knuckled grip against the hollows of his collar seemed to move him.

Frightened, Mizuki lashed out, shaking his friend hard enough to make his teeth snap shut. "Iruka," he barked, angry, worried and hiding it poorly. "Look at me!"

It was a relief to see the confusion on Iruka's face. His brown eyes were more like ripples on a lake than true ocean waves, but at least Mizuki could see more in them then his reflection.

"What's wrong with you?" he demanded, still holding onto his friend. He gave him another shake when the cloudiness started to well up again. "Iruka, wake up!"

Disoriented, Iruka muttered, "Oh, Mizuki. Hi."

The informality was as startling as the lack of waves. But then, this Iruka didn't seem like his friend. He was like a phantom or a doppelganger, and Mizuki was afraid that any moment he would slip through his fingers and disappear in a pillar of smoke. He clinched his fingers tighter, and was rewarded, finally, by a very real wince.

"Ow, Mizuki. You're hurting me," Iruka said, pushing at his friend's white claws. "Let go."

Mizuki did has he was asked. Iruka was still looking at mirrors, and Mizuki looked with him. "People will realize they're missing," he commented. "Why did you take them?"

"I needed them."

Mizuki didn't respond right away, just looked at Iruka before turning to the semi-circle of reflected light. His own face stared back at him from half a dozen perspectives. He looked over his shoulder at the others and self consciously flattened his sleep mussed hair. What had possessed him to come after his friend at such at hour was beyond him.

Beside him, Iruka was shivering.

"Come on," Mizuki said, growing concerned again. It wasn't a chilly morning; even the dew seemed warm. He pulled Iruka's shoulder, but it was like tugging on a dead thing. "I'll take you home."

The shivers had stopped being like shaking and started becoming like sobs. But quiet, soundless, stillborn things. Iruka ducked his head over his clinched knuckles and cried, his loose dark hair sticking to his face in ragged, clinging streamers. He cried.

Suddenly cold himself, Mizuki felt a deep, regretful pang. He'd been to the tiny, colorless place Iruka was issued when his former home, damaged and crumbling, had been condemned and torn down. Iruka's apartment wasn't really home.

But, it still didn't explain the mirrors…

Mizuki crouched beside his friend and faced him. When the younger boy shivered again, Mizuki reached out and pulled him close. His big brother had died, but he remembered being held this way, how reassuring it had felt. Iruka let him, and swallowed hard, trying to regain composure.

"Iruka, let's go back to my house," Mizuki offered. A wry humor seeped into his voice, "It's not like there's anyone there to care about us sneaking in."

Against the fabric of his shoulder, his friend nodded, mute but grateful. He lifted his head to the row of shinning reflective plates around them, fixed like glistening teeth around them. Mizuki thought it was disturbing. He pulled Iruka up by one arm, and kicked over one of the mirrors.

"We'll have to take them back. You can't afford to get caught stealing again."

"I don't steal." Iruka's words sounded numb.

Mizuki made a face. "Fine. You can't afford to be caught _borrowing_ again. The Hokage will kill you."

Brown, dusky lashes blinked, but Iruka said nothing. Reaching out, he gathered one of the pilfered glasses and looked into it. It generously reflected a worn, too-adult face. Iruka said, "This one is Sandaime's."

It always amazed Mizuki that as mild tempered as Iruka generally was, he could still manage to get in so much trouble. Or that he was brazen enough to steal from the leader of their village. Almost awed, he barked, "How?"

A slender shoulder rose and fell. Iruka didn't look especially proud of himself. "He's kind to me. I really shouldn't have taken it. But it was a bad night."

Mizuki shook his head, "I don't understand you."

They gathered the mirrors. Sometimes Mizuki asked Iruka who the mirrors belonged to, surprised when he knew each one exactly. A few of the academy teachers, merchants from the market, parents of their peers. One mirror caught his attention because of the crack down the center.

"It was like that," Iruka commented. "It's Takashi-sensei's."

Mizuki started. Takashi-sensei was the academy sensei in charge of Iruka's year. Before the fox, the man had been kind. However, his wife and two small children had died in the aftermath of the Kyuubi attack, killed by a collapsed beam in their home where they had been taking shelter. Angry and alone, Takashi-sensei had changed. He was a hard, strict teacher now, and of all his class (a notably small, hard-hit grade) he was especially harsh toward Iruka.

Mizuki thought it was because Takashi saw something of another little dark-haired child when he looked at Iruka. There was a picture of his daughter on his desktop. Still full faced and round-eyed, there was a general resemblance, though perhaps more in the eyes of a grieving father than anyone else. But for whatever reason, there were times when Mizuki felt Takashi-sensei's punishment sometimes bordered on abuse rather than discipline.

He fingered the glistening mirror in his fingers. If Takashi-sensei found out he'd been stolen from by this particular student, the repercussions would be severe. Iruka sometimes seemed really messed up, but he didn't deserve the way people either ignored or hurt him. "I'll take this one back first," he said. "Will you promise to meet me back here when you're done?"

Iruka nodded, distracted. He was still staring at his face in his Takashi's mirror. "I promise."

"Good," Mizuki said. He hesitated, reluctant to leave his friend alone again. He was still trembling just slightly in the dewy morning. "Will you be okay?"

Iruka nodded, then he said, "Thank you. For finding me."

There was more going on here than Mizuki comprehended. Iruka looked smaller than usual, almost sick. Struck with inspiration, he blurted, "I see you, Iruka."

Visibly started , Iruka stammered, "W-what?"

Mizuki found himself suddenly surrounded by true waves, and he almost gasping with relief. He was starting to get it. This village was a cold place to him, too. Except for Iruka. "I see you, Iruka. We'll stick together, right?"

Iruka nodded like a door on a slow hinge. "Okay, Mizuki," he said, and there was all the devotion in his voice that was so like him. Iruka never did anything by half. His heart was always on his sleeve, and often, in his eyes. Now, they were wet.

Mizuki looked to the dawning sun. "Good."


	10. Soldier Pill

**10. Soldier Pill**  
Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Naruto  
Summary: One of the many unique trials of the shinobi parent. Little Naruto gets into Iruka's chuunin jacket.

* * *

Naruto stood at the base of the closet door, his neck craned back so that he could see all the way up past their futons and blankets to the very top shelf.

High, high up there he could see a green fold peeking out, and he shuffled with nervousness and excitement. It was his sensei's chuunin jacket, the special one he wore when he had to go away on missions. It was just _full_ of stuff in dozens of pockets and secret folds, but the high shelf meant that he wasn't supposed to touch it. Ruka-sensei said.

It was because of the dangerous stuff in there, probably. But Naruto was a big, big boy now – way bigger than when Sensei made the rule. He knew how to be really careful.

Plus, Iruka was sleeping. He'd just gotten back after nearly a week – practically forever – and he was really tired. He hadn't heard Naruto force open the closet door, even when it made the creaky noise it always made when you wanted it to be quiet. No, Naruto was not going to get caught. He would just play a little and put it back.

The high shelf was really far up, but not too far for a ninja. Naruto was gonna be a ninja one day. Ruka-sensei said. So he climbed slowly up the lower shelves, careful not to let his feet snag on anything and slip. He climbed until he could almost reach the vest, just there at the tips of his fingers.

With a little grunt of exertion, the toddler jerked higher, snagging the green fabric and dragging it back with him. It slid over the side and dropped fast, too heavy for Naruto to hold onto it and not fall. He winced at the clattering noise it made when it landed and some of its contents came loose. Quiet reigned for a moment, and he listened…but there was nothing. He was safe.

It was harder getting down than climbing up, but Naruto only tripped on the last step. His head thumped on the floor, but he bit his lip and didn't cry, rubbing the sore spot with his fingers and rocking until the hurt went away. The jacket lay waiting, and he giggled compulsively seeing it, happy, happy. He'd gotten it.

The first thing that caught his attention were the things that had fallen out when it dropped. "Oh," he said, frowning at the half-opened navy pouch which had probably been sitting on top. There were metal handles sticking out, and one of the weapons had gotten loose and lay gleaming opaquely against the floor boards. Naruto knew what those were. They were sharp. Ruka said never, ever touch.

He pushed the ouchies off to the side, cautious not to touch the shinning edges. Afterward, he smiled. See what a good, careful boy he was?

Naruto dragged the vest into his lap, using his new skill at undoing buttons so he could begin exploring. The long thin pockets in front had tight rolls of paper. They had bright colors and Sensei's neat, pretty handwriting. He wanted to keep one, but it wouldn't fit down the bib of his coverall. Another compartment had more papers, white and rectangular with symbols all over. Those were stuck everywhere in Konoha – no fun at all.

More searching, more baubles. Naruto lined up his favorites beside him: lots of white balls in a tin that stuck to his fingers, a mirror the size of his fist, a sharp rock and bit of metal tied together with string, a bag of smelly powders, and a coil of wire.

The jacket itself was a puzzle. It was thick and heavy and smelled funny, like dinner when Ruka-sensei burned it on accident. He noticed a blotch on one side, sort of brownish and stiff. The cloth was ripped there, and Naruto poked his finger curiously through the hole, picking at the little strings that had gotten torn up. The stain was all over – Ruka-sensei really needed to wash it.

It was as he was turning the jacket inside out to see if the rip went all the way through that Naruto jostled the pocket full of beads. They spilled out on the floor in a pile by his feet, different sizes and colors.

What were those?

He poked at them clumsily with his pudgy fingers, moving the blue, black, and red pills around in a whirl. The little round ones vaguely resembled the chewy tablets that he ate in the morning with breakfast because Ruka-sensei said they made big, strong boys. They weren't nasty like other medicine; kind of cherry and good. But sensei only ever let him have just one at a time. These were probably good too, and now he could have lots if he wanted.

Naruto picked up one of the red ones and sniffed at it, but then drew back as he felt an infant pang of conscience. Ruka-sensei had given him one this morning, and Naruto was already a bad boy for getting into the jacket. He hated when Sensei wore his sad face, like he always did when Naruto was naughty. It was such a bad face, oh…

Whimpering with indecision, he stared down at the tempting treat. Finally, it was just too much. Opening his mouth, he brought the pill up.

"_NARUTO!_"

It was the hysterical nature of the cry as well as the volume that made the little boy jerk in his seat and drop his hand. A skittering noise echoed across the floor as the dropped pill fell back among its fellows. Naruto knew he was in trouble, but he was startled when his normally gentle guardian swept across the room and gripped him harshly by the shoulders. "Did you eat one of those?" he demanded. "How many did you eat?"

Terrified, the child shook his head. "Didn't!"

Slowly, Iruka-sensei's fierce rigor faded, and Naruto suddenly noticed that he was breathing really hard – fast, like he had run a race. He looked scared, and it was so much worse than the sad face that Naruto felt a hiccupping sob well up in him, miserable and bewildered.

"Oh, Naruto," Iruka sighed, and then Naruto was drawn tight inside his arms. Grateful, the little boy clung to him with the tight-fisted terror of the badly chastised. "I didn't mean to yell at you. You scared me."

Naruto sniffled. "Sorry. Got out the jacket. I'm sorry."

Carefully, his sensei pried little fingers away from his sleeves and rearranged his legs so that Naruto could sit comfortably in his lap. Tears dried under his hands, which then shifted to rub slow circles against Naruto's head, beneath his hair. Soothed, the child quieted, though sorrow still dwelt in his face.

Iruka reached to gather a few of the black and red tablets, holding them up for Naruto to see. "Do you know what these are?" he asked.

"Mitamins," Naruto answered surely.

His answer only made Iruka look conflicted, like he wasn't sure how to explain. And that was weird, because Ruka-sensei could always explain things good. He was Naruto's _favorite_ teacher because he was so nice and told Naruto as many times as he needed without getting mad.

"Naruto," the man spoke very slow and clear. "These aren't quite like vitamins. A ninja might use them on a mission, but only in an emergency."

"Mergency mitamins," Naruto reasoned.

"Well…only sort of. " Iruka sighed deeply, rubbing his chest as though it hurt him. "You'll understand more when you're older, but what you need to know right now is that soldier pills are dangerous. You should never eat them, because they could hurt your body very badly. Do you understand?"

Timidly, the boy nodded. He looked down at the little colored circles with apprehension. Emergency vitamins were serious, like ouchies.

Naruto was startled to find himself drawn into another embrace; Iruka-sensei was pressing into him like he didn't want to ever let go. "It would kill me if you got hurt, Naruto," he said, his voice sounding hoarse. It was a trying-not-to-cry voice.

"Kill" was a term that was still a little uncertain to him, but Naruto knew it was something like "die", which meant to go away and never come back. The thought horrified him, and he squirmed to press his face into the warm spot below his sensei's collar. He could hear the heart there, beating fast.

"I'm sorry," he said, earnest as he knew how.

Ruka-sensei just nodded. "It's okay," he said quietly, more like himself. He'd stopped shaking so bad, but he didn't let go. "It's okay. Just please don't do this again. Our promise?"

"Promise," Naruto said, and he held on too.


	11. Empty Shelter

**11. Empty Shelter****  
**Character/relationship: Iruka-sensei, Kakashi  
Summary: Iruka's is a safe place…or was.

* * *

A steady hiss of falling rain simmered across the surfaces of Konohagakure. Twilight had come and passed, and now the world was webbed with the deep darkness of a nighttime shower. The raindrops fell black as tears, and hung over the starless village like a wet, glistening skin.

Inside, Iruka was taking more than the usual care as he spooned out dark green leaves and set the water to boil. He had to press more focus and energy into keeping each finger from shaking, making him meticulous.

Reclining with illegitimate ease at his table, his guest sat with his chin against his palm, gazing with an indifferent expression that never left Iruka's back. It wavered only when the chipped china mug, filled with steaming tea, was handed to him. Kakashi shifted the cup back and forth, watching the liquid lap against the sides. He took a long gulp.

The faint grimace made webs around his visible eye, and he chuckled. "Aha, your tea is bitter, Iruka-sensei."

Iruka's response was automatic. "I can get you some honey if you'd like."

Kakashi's one visible eye trailed to a third mug which remained on the counter. It was an obnoxious thing, bright orange with long scars, as though it had been glued back together at least once before. There was a beheaded pigtailed stick-figure doodled on one side. "Are you expecting someone else, Sensei?"

Iruka's eyes darted to the mug. "I didn't even expect one," he said, and his pointed look made even the great Kakashi look mildly chagrined.

He coughed. "It was raining. And I was bored."

"Why not visit one of your friends."

"They wouldn't have let me in."

Iruka muttered a half-heard complaint, but Kakashi was preoccupied. His eye drifted over the typical apartment dwelling, Spartan and a little dull. The orange mug stuck out like blasphemy.

Kakashi came to a conclusion quickly. "He came by a lot?"

Iruka answered, "You might say that. After all, scruffy, hungry intruders are my specialty."

Kakashi's wince ended in a half grin. "Maybe I knew," he mumbled, and shrugged. After all, he had ended up here himself tonight. Iruka's was a safe place. He looked back at the mug on the counter. "You miss him?"

Across the table, Iruka shifted restlessly, and his eyes darkened. Tears. Aw, not that. Kakashi almost cringed. Iruka-sensei was so weird. How had he ever become a Chuunin?

"Yes."

There was a grieving silence in which Kakashi fidgeted with discomfort. "It's not as though he was yours, not really."

Iruka looked at him a long time. "You're right," he said, and he was blinking. Another, almost unnoticeable tremble. "You're right."

Kakashi watched the wraith-like shadows in Iruka's unguarded eyes. Ridiculous, ridiculous. Hesitantly, he reached to pat the man's shoulder, a feather light, almost not there touch. "Maa, Iruka-sensei," he threw out. He wasn't very good at comfort. "It will be okay."

Iruka looked up at him with blatant surprise. He seemed to be deciding if he were being made fun of. Then a smile ghosted his lips, there and gone with a tired laugh.

"What?" Kakashi asked.

Iruka sunk his face into arms. "I take it back."

"Take what back?"

Iruka grinned, "Wishing you hadn't come."

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you for responding to my request to review. I appreciate when you share your thoughts, even if that means you merely copy and paste a line or two that particularly stood out to you. You're wonderful.


	12. Elementary

**12. Elementary**

Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Ibiki, Jounin

Summary: Iruka is called in to teach the new jounin a lesson about the basics.

* * *

The inauspicious lecture hall wasn't much more than an infrequently used classroom. Its only features aside from a row of tables was a lone backward-facing chalkboard which was currently being closely monitored by a dozen sharply watchful eyes.

The young men and women sat with a solemnity befitting their newly minted jounin status, all looking very grave and alert. Many of them had been anticipating their recent promotion through months of struggle and effort, and today they were stiff in their seats as they awaited their instructor, wondering what challenges their training as Konaha's most superior shinobi might entail.

One of these fresh recruits relaxed in his chair beside a fidgeting companion. He was a fifth generation shinobi, and as such held the well-modeled belief that as a jounin, his first duty was to look as aloof and unbothered as possible. Laid-back and comfortably gifted, this came easily to him.

Very unlike his nearest companion. "Stop trembling," he commanded the anxious youth, a sentiment that was echoed by the nods and irritable grimaces of many of the others.

"I'm not trembling," the cowed young man insisted, hunched and clinching the edge of the table in a deliberate attempt to steel his nerves. He swallowed compulsively, "I'm excited."

The former rolled his eyes. Not for the first time, he wondered how this emotional baby had managed to make rank. Peeking around the class with a veiled contempt, he had similar thoughts about many of his peers.

A flicker of approaching charka alerted the class. There was a rattle as the door slid open, admitting a shinobi who seemed chiseled out of stone – solid and fissured and immovable. His aura of disinterested malice overshadowed them, and the room became, if anything, even more silent.

Most of them recognized him immediately: Morino Ibiki, Tokubetsu Jounin – examiner and rumored head of the ANBU Torture and Interrogation Force, though of course such a designation would never be formally confirmed. Most of the class shifted backward in their seats as he came to stand before them, radiating intensity out of his disfigured face. Smoldering eyes bore down on them appraisingly.

There was little enough time wasted on introduction.

"If you don't know who I am by this point in your careers, then you don't deserve to be here," Ibiki began, his tone a low, punctuating kind of growl that demanded the attention of his listeners. "It might interest you to know that I have been preparing jounin since before most of your were thought of, and I will be your commander through this portion of your instruction. In other words, if you want to enter the field as a jounin, you will first have to convince _me_ that you are capable. Indubitably, this is a task that will require all of your focus."

Ignoring the tension that had grown in the room, Ibiki went on, "In general, this stage of your training will expose you to what we call case-studies – opportunities for you to observe experienced shinobi display techniques that you would do well to emulate. Genjutsu, traps, tracking, torture. Today's experience is special."

The jounin-sensei moved to the inverted blackboard, which he swung to face forward. Pinned to the upper right-hand corner was a name neatly printed, followed by rank, specialization, and a general physical description.

"Your target is Umino Iruka, Konoha shinobi of chuunin standing. Many of you may know him from his work at the missions desk. Your objective today will be to detain this man and bring him back here – _alive_, if it doesn't trouble you terribly," he added. "Though technically the exercise itself is without restriction as to method."

He paused for a moment to allow the information to sink in. When he continued it was to say, "Umino is one of our more valuable guest demonstrators, and what he's here to teach you may be ultimately more valuable than any other training you've yet sustained. His '_specialization_,' if it could be called that, is elementary jutsu and the foundational shinobi arts. He is, in fact, an elementary school teacher – a sensei at the village's ninja academy. Umino teaches babies how to survive and excel in a ninja's world."

He grinned then, wolfishly. "We'll see if he manages to do anything with you."

Oblivious to their low murmur, the jounin went on his briefing, much as he might have for any mission. "There are three things known about him with overwhelming certainty – one, he is text-book perfect, as one might expect. Two, he has remarkably precise charka control. But also three, he doesn't have _much_ charka, which is arguably the reason he's never advanced. His family was an import, so his history isn't well known."

He finished with a word of advice, "Be aware of how dangerous the basics are when worked to the point of perfection. If it's written on a scroll, he will know it."

"But nothing _un_known," one of the new jounin persisted, having since digested the parameters of their unusual task. "Nothing radical?"

Their instructor pinned the youth momentarily with a scathing look. Dryly, Ibiki countered, "Let's work a comparison. I'll calculate all the extraordinary, rare jutsu in the world…and you can account for all the _known_ jutsu."

The vastness of such a number so flabbergasted the former speaker that he fell back against his chair, eyes wide. "N-no one could," he began.

Ibiki nodded stiffly. "Most nin forget basic jutsu as they develop. They specialize and substitute. There is a common classroom jutsu that children use to sharpen their pencils. Can anyone recall it? How about the one to fold paper cranes? Our argument today is that when a shinobi moves away from the basics, he looses something significant and puts himself at a disadvantage even to those less skilled than himself. You are going to prove this to yourselves today."

Another initiate spoke now. For most of the session he had seemed bored, but now he lifted his chin and commented, "Paper crane making jutsu? Come on. The reason so many shinobi forget those techniques is because they are useless to anyone but stupid children and doting mommies."

Ibiki glowered over the quorum with a sharp grey disgust that was so great he barely seemed capable of responding. "Underestimation kills more shinobi than charka or metal," he finally offered succinctly, and they all shifted under his eyes.

Seeing plainly that their were less than intimidated, he rumbled, "Before we get started I would like to be clear: I expect you to show this man respect. He may be your technical inferior, and outside of this room can't regulate how you treat him and others like him. However, you would do well to remember that all shinobi in this village, no matter their rank, are your comrades. Moreover, what you hold over these people in rank does not necessarily equate experience. Umino-sensei is thirty-two years old – one of the oldest chuunin in the village." He looked very severely over their youthful faces, younger and younger ever year. "He survived the Kyuubi and the reconstruction, Orochimaru, the Village wars, and any number of other odd insurgencies and conflicts. He had a hand in the training of our current Hokage, and though you may not know his name, he has profoundly influenced this village as it currently exists."

Yeah, he sounded like quite the role model if one wanted to be a thirty-year-old chuunin, but Ibiki interrupted before anyone could work up the coldness to say so.

Ibiki favored them with a shark-like grin, "I strongly advice you not to underestimate Umino, though I doubt you will listen. On your own heads be it." Then, pivoting, he went to the formerly empty desk and stretched himself across the seat. When no one moved, he gestured dismissively towards the door. "Well, what are you waiting for? You'll be using the eastern jounin training field. He's ridiculous enough that he'll probably be waiting for you. Now go."

The entire group was on their feet in an instant, passing one another discretely determined looks, already teaming up or threatening perceived interference. They'd reached the door when the gruff voice of their new captain reached them, cold once more.

He left them with an order: "This is a closed session, which means that you are ordered not to discuss any of what you've seen here. What you learn – if anything," he added. " – is for your own edification and not a subject of idle gossip. Understood?"

* * *

There was some minimal debate over their task as the new jounin approached the designated field, which butted up against the forest just outside the village. Wondering aloud, one guessed, "He must be very powerful if he's able to challenge a dozen jounin."

Another snorted. "With pencil-sharpening jutsu? Give me a break. More likely this is a training session on psychological advantages and Ibiki-san is just building us up so that we're nervous instead of ready."

There was a pause. "You think?"

"It's possible," the former responded. "I'm just not going to get all wound up over a chuunin-level opponent just because someone tells me to."

As they approached, a figure came increasingly into focus, lingering at the edge of the wood. They all took a moment to evaluate their waiting quarry. He stood at about average height, leanly built under a standard issue vest that looked more suited to a classroom than a training field; there was a patter of chalk ghosting it in patches, and the clothing hung as though it weren't very heavily equipped. Eyes that were almost black looked out of an open face dissected horizontally by a pale scar, but otherwise he was completely standard. Average looking in every way.

"Hello," the man greeted them when they were close. "My name is Umino Iruka. Undoubtly Ibiki has explained your objective. You'll be seeking me." He chuckled, as though he found this to be very funny.

His levity must have grated on someone's nerves, because a slice of metal cut off any further introduction, slamming home into the hollow knot of flesh just below the chuunin's throat.

A few of the jounin candidates' eyes were wide, mouths half open in aborted protest. Then the dim grey smoke cleared and a man-sized log thunked harmlessly to the ground, a kunai embedded deeply into its wooden heart. The group stared. A substitution technique; they'd all seen it a thousand times.

"Hey," a voice from somewhere above summoned their attention. They all looked up towards the rafters of a nearby tree, and there sitting on a large branch was Umino-sensei, waving down on them. He continued speaking as though he had never been interrupted. "I won't use any technique that you shouldn't have already learned at the academy. Assuming you were paying attention at the academy."

The way he said it somehow managed to make them all feel abashed, and there was an almost amalgamated shift in the group, sheepish eyes. It took them a moment to realize they were all aspiring jounin – elite members of Konoha's shinobi forces – and not naughty children being scolded.

"I'll give you a moment to consider your strategies," Umino continued, seated comfortably as though he weren't about ready to have a dozen elite shinobi after his tail. As though he were safe, unconcerned by their proximity or the fact that one of them had already attempted to impale him on a blade. "One or two minutes, and then be on your guard, alright? I haven't worked on anything in advance so it should be fair."

Growls. Some of them thought this chuunin teacher was being arrogant.

"Alright then!" Umino asked, "Shall we start?"

The words had barely left his mouth before a charka infused shuriken slammed into the place he was sitting. But no body fell, leaving them to watch the slow fall of an empty shower of splinters.

"Stop reacting! Think!" someone chastised the bristling man who had now twice attempted murder.

Coincidentally, it was one of the first commands any of them had ever heard upon admittance to the ninja academy.

* * *

Breeching the forest of Konoha was like entering a breathing throat. The incredible web of undergrowth and overgrowth was an extension of the village just as surely as its people's beating hearts, a formidable opponent all its own.

It was into this veritable fortress that Umino-sensei had disappeared. Even so, it shouldn't have been hard to follow him. Combined, his pursuers represented the very best minds and freshest skills in Konohagakure. Most could have tracked a gnat at midnight by the feel of its charka.

Which was irrelevant, because there was no charka. The chuunin was gone like a mist, trackless, so that even the most sensitive among them had to shake their heads incredulously. How can one follow a charka trail if there was none?

Thus they were left to seek the teacher by a more traditional method: searching, hand over foot. They fanned out, mostly in teams with a few lone wolves. Each chose a direction and departed, their senses spread wide.

One likeminded group headed westward, certain that their task would not be difficult. They were convinced that they were faster, stronger, more able. It made them comfortable. Razor-eyed, they moved in a straightforward, determined way.

"There!" one called to his team, and they exploded from the foliage like raptors from a cloud. Talons extended, they dove after their wildly fleeing prey. He dodged like a rabbit, but their skill was overwhelming. An open stretch of grass in a divot of the wood was his downfall. Surrounding him from three directions, they burst into the clearing, and their combined rain of metal made the chuunin loose his footing.

He lay on the ground before them, dark eyes wide and sweat dripping from his chin onto his heaving chest. One of the kunai they had thrown had hooked his ankle, and it bled steadily onto the grass.

Breathing rather heavily herself, but with a carefully affected professionalism, their leader stepped forward. "Umino Iruka, we will now escort you back to the training building. Your cooperation would be appreciated but is not necessary. Do you surrender?"

To their surprise, the man on the ground ignored them, scrunching up his face as he poked tentatively at his wounded foot. The group stirred restlessly, uncertain, and the woman repeated, "Umino. You've been captured. Will you return with us?"

This provoked another odd reaction. The chuunin peered up coyly from beneath matted strands of hair. He looked…_amused,_ and all of a sudden they realized he still had not spoken. Realization came like a strike across the face and their team-leader bellowed, "Retreat!"

The moved with all the grace and speed expected of their rank and ability. Unfortunately, when they tried to leave the amorphous ring of trees, it was as though they hit an invisible wall. Smarting from the sting of electricity, they recoiled, and with an idea of what they were seeking they easily spotted the tags. The paper crackled faintly at the center were familiar symbols had been neatly inked. Containment seals.

At the center of the clearing, the clone smiled at them and gave a jaunty wave before evaporating into a cloud of yellow smoke.

* * *

Elsewhere, one of the women who had chosen to go alone had come to a likely sign. It was only a few long, dark hairs, but she was a distant cousin of the Inuzuka and her tracking skills were superb. She felt coolly triumphant, critically near her goal.

Ah.

The young woman squinted at the patch of bushes, something niggling at her senses. She took a half-step toward them, but as she did so she got the strongest impression that _nothing was there_, that she was on the wrong trail all together, emptiness, quiet, no. Scratching her forehead, feeling somewhat disoriented, she balked. Pivoting, she turned and went in another direction.

* * *

Moving generally southeast, an unlikely pair traveled at a punishing speed, lead by the confident, fifth-generation shinobi. Honestly, he would have preferred to go alone, but ultimately he'd chosen the reluctant baby from that morning because he knew the young man specialized in neutralizing genjutsu, one of his own weakest skills.

"Where are we going?" his younger colleague called to him as they leapt. He was panting, already winded.

His partner frowned disapprovingly. "Quiet," he commanded, "And pay attention. All we need is one flicker of charka."

"It's like following a spirit," the other complained, holding his side. "There's just nothing substantial." He gulped in a breath. "I need to stop."

The former growled, frustrated by this complete incompetence. This second-rate was holding him back, reducing his chances rather than improving them. "Fine," he snarled, "But I'm not waiting."

And with a burst of speed, he left his comrade trailing behind.

* * *

The quiet genjutsu specialist had not wanted to try for jounin. He'd done decently in his classes, met expectations, and happily celebrated his chuunin election two years later than most of his peer-group. At first he hadn't possessed any real drive to seek promotion, but his exceptionality with illusions had impressed someone. No one else in his family were ninja, and his father had been so proud – his son, a jounin with no benefit of bloodline at all.

He'd been too ashamed of breaking the old man's faith to refuse after that.

Standing bent over his knees, struggling to make his lungs work properly, he pondered mournfully that perhaps his decision was a bit premature. Obviously he wasn't ready for this.

Then a harsh voice barked his name, and he shot up, weapon in hand. "Put that down, you idiot," came the disparaging command.

"Chiharu," he said with relief when he recognized the look of profound irritation. "You came back."

The other jounin crossed his arms imperially. "You'd trip over your own sandals without supervision."

Too good-natured to take offence, the reluctant jounin began to smile…then squinted. There was something wrong about that face. The young man was unconscious before he was aware he'd been struck.

* * *

Though he was unaware of it, Chiharu was about to be treated to the only genuine sighting of Umino Iruka in the entire pool of his confederates.

Having left the heel-dragger behind, he made good progress, and when he felt the flicker of charka he was more smug than surprised. Halting on a sturdy branch, he surveyed the vast corridor of mossy trunks and endless, confusing spirals of leaves. The flack jacket did its job, but after careful study, the jounin saw him.

Almost carelessly, he tossed a pair of shuriken to bite into his quarry's cover. He'd expected this to lead to a chase, but instead the teacher dropped out into the open, perching casually across from him on the wooden rafters.

The chuunin smiled, flushed as though he had been running. He didn't look old. Only the faintest lines creasing his playful eyes betrayed anything at all about his age. He could have been twenty.

Chiharu nodded to him, not respectfully, but with a smirk. "This is the end, Sensei," he warned.

"Oh?" The man actually answered. "I already think you've made a fatal mistake."

The jounin almost wanted to laugh. Here this man sat, facing down easily the best of all the new jounin, and he had the gall to tell Chiharu that _he'd_ made a fatal mistake? "I almost feel sorry for you, old man," he muttered, coiling himself for the attack.

'No limitation as to method,' that's what Ibiki had said. Perhaps he'd bring this arrogant mid-ranker back with a few bruises to nurse.

He'd just left the ground when reality shifted. The sky peeking through the canopy turned a sudden, violent indigo, streaked as though it had been colored by wax. It melted into the trees like streaks of tar, until his vision was barred like the rungs of a jail. The air against his skin turned rough like static, driving him crazy. A staggering breath and it was like swallowing blood. He gagged.

Genjutsu! He tried to break it, but his hands were shaking too hard.

Meanwhile the world cavorted as though it were shifting on an ocean. Nothing was colored right, and it swirled; Chiharu could no longer feel his own body. Then a face loomed before his through the awful fog, the rocking, and sickness. Grotesquely, it frowned, like a harlequin mask.

The last words he heard were, "You shouldn't have left your teammate."

* * *

Ibiki hadn't wasted any time once they returned to the classroom to let them all know how embarrassing their performance had been. He stood before them now, his arms crossed behind his back, and the expression he was wearing – thunderous, dark as pitted ebony – left no doubt about how he felt of their competency.

"Some of you are lucky this was only a training simulation" he rumbled, and shook his head disdainfully. "Our most promising tracker misled by a basic redirection jutsu."

There was a poorly muffled snort on the other side of the classroom, and Ibiki turned on them sharply. "Tamato, your whole squad was debilitated with an academy level containment seal. Konoha Jounin, stuck between trees!" He moaned, as though he had lost faith in all that was good by their unbelievable show of idiocy. "Thank the gods we aren't at war!"

Another group of five kept their heads ducked. They had already been badly chastised, not only for spending the entire afternoon without any sighting of the chuunin-sensei, but also for coming back "dead" – each with an exploding tag pasted somewhere on their backs. Since they hadn't been activated, none of the unfortunates had even realized they were there.

Sobering, Ibiki sighed deeply. He summarized for them succinctly, "Every one of you were defeated or misdirected by the most basic of shinobi arts – traps, clones, henges. Poor teamwork defeated nearly half of you and caused 'casualties' that could easily have been avoided."

He pinned Chiharu with a particularly piercing glare out of the corner of one dark eye, and the young man was glad there wasn't a mirror. He was sure his face was aflame with humiliation.

Throughout the debriefing, Umino-sensei had sat wordless on the edge of a desk, looking just as harmless and unassuming as before. He'd watching dispassionately as their new captain pitilessly ravaged their faults, but when Ibiki gestured him forward, he came before them as though it were his natural place.

"What you experienced today is called an upset," the teacher began. "An overwhelmingly advantaged opponent is defeated by an inferior one, and it happens much more frequently than you think. This is primarily because we don't wait until shinobi are advanced in their training to teach them how to kill. As soon as my students can hold a kunai without cutting themselves I show them how to wrench out of man's throat, where the tendons are, what will bleed the most. Every child in this village knows how to kill you, and if they can do it, so can any operative in the field. The desperate don't play games or show off," he explained. "They only have to get lucky once, and _you'll_ give them the opening – through carelessness, through arrogance. Do you understand this?"

The group ducked their head as one, deeply chagrinned. They had played through this scenario just as it had been expected they would. Who knew how many times Umino had lead prospective jounin through a similar chase?

He ended his short speech with a final recommendation. "If there is anything I'd like you to remember, it's this: You're never too strong to die because of an accident. Be wise and careful, and perhaps not to full of yourself to respect an opponent that you should have no trouble defeating, eh?" He winked at them.

The looming shadow stepped forward then, knocking them from the trace they had fallen under as the sensei spoke. "That having been said," Ibiki rumbled. "There are also some elements of Umino's performance I would prefer you didn't copy."

This was an unexpected enough to bring everyone to attention, curious what such a statement could possibly mean.

"Just as underestimation will kill you, so will mercy." Dark eyes bore ruthlessly into the team who'd been planted with the exploding tags. "None of this is a game. You all should be dead now – just punishment for your foolishness. That you're not is evidence of another kind of stupidity."

Umino-sensei glared at the floor.

* * *

The classroom of jounin had been dismissed for the evening to hiss over their injuries and humiliating defeat. Chiharu, for his part, had a building headache putting pressure behind his eyes, and his hands had still not completely stopped trembling. Feeling contemplative and more than a little crestfallen, he'd trailed behind his comrades in hopes of encountering Umino-sensei on his own.

There were some things he wanted to ask him.

Even outside of their simulated battle, the teacher flickered low at the edge of his senses. The young man followed it down a hall towards a hopeful looking door, which stood ajar. Just as he was reaching to push it open, however, he was alerted to the sound of voices.

Ibiki's gravelly timber was instantly recognizable. "Not a very promising group," he grunted. "And such poor timing. We desperately need jounin in the field."

"They all struggle with this lesson," a quieter voice responded, and for a moment it sounded almost sullen. "I assumed that was why you keep repeating it."

"Do I sense a tone of bitterness, Sensei?"

"Another ninja might have found it insulting to be invited to give a demonstration only to be castigated in front of his technical superiors."

"If you insist on displaying your bad habits in front of my men then I will continue to give them a warning against mimicking you."

"You invited me here. You _requisitioned_ me."

"You're good at what you do, Iruka. But there's a reason that I would never support your promotion."

"You sound like Kakashi."

"He's right, then. Once they leave the academy, we can't afford to have them thinking it's a ninja's job to be _fair._ You teach your babies how to be people. I have to teach them to be soldiers."

"It's irritating to be told than when you _know._"

"It's irritating to tell you that because I know that you know."

"Asking someone to lay down their humanity for the sake of their job is dangerous. And don't tell me being a ninja is all about protecting the weak and defending the village. If you're going to force the bitterness of our position down my throat then I don't want the party line. I _work_ at the missions desk."

There was a barely audible sigh. "You're trying to redefine the shinobi, Iruka, and I can admire your determination. But I'm a pragmatist, and a leader who desires his subordinates' continued existence. It's why I teach them to murder unflinchingly. It's why I instruct them to kill from tree tops and shadows instead of broad daylight. And it's why I keep _requisitioning_ you. I want them to live as much as you do. We just have different ideas about what 'living' really means."

There was a pause. "Maybe so. I just think we should remember that it's easy to teach someone to destroy. Harder to teach them to be human. To respect life. To think of consequences."

"You're thinking about the little illusion breaker."

"It's obvious he doesn't want to be here, Ibiki…"

Chiharu back away from the entryway then, allowing the conversation to fade to incomprehensibility. Stroking his forehead, he considered what he had learned – today, under the trees, and now, in this empty hall. About arrogance, strength, and death. Ibiki wasn't wrong, and neither was Iruka. Ninja lived under harsh realities.

But, he thought, his mind wandering back to their lesson on the basics. Perhaps there was more one could forget than paper crane making jutsu. Like the value of one's teammates, he reflected with shame.

Anyone could kill, he ultimately decided. A shinobi had to be guided by something more.

* * *

Author's Note: This is one of my favorite three short stories written for "Ripples" (the others are "Truth, Sum of Many Lies" and "Force for Good"), so I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Thank you for your readership and your reviews.


	13. Benevolently, Definitely Mine

**Benevolently, Definitely Mine**  
Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Kyuubi  
Summary: The Kyuubi visits Iruka at night, smiling like the sun under a tuff of blond hair.

* * *

The Kyuubi thinks about Sensei sometimes, because he is one of the few beings in Konoha whose blood it would not like to ink across the Hokage Mountain.

Their relationship is twofold, like most things about the creature in these mortal days. The part of it that was Naruto had been fostered by him, protected. And for that reason there was a deep, inner part of Kyuubi that hummed with contentment in the teacher's presence. Demons did not have mothers; the Kyuubi was war, and always had been. Yet in this shell it was a boy, and Iruka had parented him.

But if the demon was sometimes the child Naruto, it was also simultaneously the Fox. And as the Kyuubi – the kingly death-bringer – it felt benevolence, as though towards a loyal subject, because Iruka kept its host from breaking to death.

What all this boiled down to was that Iruka served them – demon and boy.

Which is why it shook awake the little body sometimes, deep in the gloaming, and wandered out into the night. The familiar window it leapt onto was always open to them, not that any mere lock or seal could restrict Kyuubi.

Once inside, the creature padded soundlessly through the kitchen and into the main room. There, it looked out of blue eyes upon the fragile animal lying at an awkward angle against the arm of the couch, school papers spread before him. Sensei worked too hard. The old man – _Hokage_, it thinks and hisses – should be more careful.

He slunk closer. The burning War-Beast didn't really understand love, but it knew fondness. It was fond of its vessel, and through Naruto it had learned new emotions. Affection, even. Its feelings for the sensei filtered through the boy, and the boy loved. It was a strange sensation.

"Hello, Sensei," it spoke.

The teacher shifted. "Naruto," he said, groggy with sleep. Too groggy to notice the way the youngster shifted closer like a cat, all velvet paws and sly, grinning eyes. Instead, he smiled sleepily at the body of the child levering himself up beside his teacher on the couch. Affectionately, the man reached out to rub his fingers through the downy scalp in a familiar caress.

The Kyuubi practically purred. See how Sensei greeted them? He was happy they were there. Happy to make them safe.

"What's wrong, Naruto?" Iruka asked. "Did you get lonely at your new apartment? I thought you were getting used to it."

New apartment. A den to which he was adjusting. But this one still smelt better. He buried his nose in sensei's side, inhaling deeply.

The teacher chuckled. "You're being awfully silly tonight," he remarked as he settled his back into a comfortable fold of the couch, but he didn't reject the Kyuubi's snuggling. Smart, obedient Iruka-sensei. He never pushed them away, or made faces at them on the street, or scoffed at them in defiance of the Fox's vast superiority. Sensei would do anything for Kyuubi.

Absently, the teacher stroked the child's back, though his hand grew increasingly heavy as the dark eyes faltered, sinking closed. He'd been working extra missions to provide for Naruto's needs theses days – food, weapons, parchment, scrolls. The academy was expensive, more than any five-year-old could ever hope to pay.

Kyuubi could tell by the soft, lengthening breaths that Iruka-sensei had faded back into sleep, his head sunk heavily against one shoulder. Poor, tired Sensei. The Fox drew himself up on his knees, peering into his favored one's creased face. He petted the warm cheek, stroking the vulnerable neck fondly. The same curling smile, full of fang. Mine.

This was the clearest emotion it knew: possessiveness. Sensei belonged to Kyuubi, it was as simple as that.

Without a qualm, the demon-boy made up its place in the older shinobi's lap, enjoying the warmth, the smell. But wait. Kyuubi caught an unfamiliar scent on the rumpled clothing, not yet shed from the day's work. It growled softly. Iruka-sensei had been playing with a new someone, new friend, and that was unacceptable. The children it could tolerate, but the adults had no business with him. Yet that could be dealt with in the morning. Naruto was as jealous as Kyuubi of Iruka's attention.

He would cooperate with hardly any nudging at all.

On the teacher slept, without a twinge. He trusted Kyuubi, Naruto. He trusted them so much it made Kyuubi like to think about killing him, just so it could feel pleased with itself when it didn't. Naruto still didn't like those kinds of ideas, though, so it kept them for these dark nights. Then Kyuubi was allowed to dwell on the thought of Iruka's soft throat, and why when it finally destroyed this village, the demon might even spare him.

It nuzzled the empty space below Sensei's ear, where the pulse beat heavily through the artery. Parent, servant. The feelings were all mixed up, like it, him, them – like an infant's blood and a demon's charka in a tiny little pink body of smiles and skin.

Times were coming, in short years, when Kyuubi would be strong enough to rip Konohagakure up by the roots. Then it would slaver over its fields and its children, drink its green blood. There would be no trace left, except a great crushed whirl of blood and bodies. Kyuubi would destroy them with the bars in which it had been bound, staring out of blue eyes. Then the entire village would turn against Kyuubi's borrowed face and together they would lay them to waste.

Things could still go wrong, of course. Delicate bones enclosed Kyuubi, enemies surrounded. There might even be a time before it was ready that the metal of Konoha would be at their throat. Kyuubi didn't worry about that day, though.

A little hand twisted around the collar of the sleeping guardian, and it rested a small head against the shoulder moving gently up and down. It didn't worry.

Because Iruka would do anything for them. Kyuubi, Naruto.

* * *

Author's Note: Don't ask me to explain where this chapter came from. I don't know. Thank you so much for the enormous outpouring of reviews. I appreciate when you share your thoughts, even if that means you merely copy and paste a line or two that particularly stood out to you.


	14. Cycle of Son

**14. Cycle of Sons**  
Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Naurto  
Summary: A unlikely father thinks about the one who fathered him.

* * *

A casual shadow made its way soundlessly through the labyrinthine passages of Konohagakure. Deliberately meandering pathways stopped, wound, doubled over, and occasionally just seemed to disappear into mist. Even so, they were so intimately familiar to the ones who dwelt there, and especially to this one.

A tall blond figure, young but not a youth. His bright vitality was matched by his sun-dazzled, longish mane. Still, there was age in his eyes. The almost gaudy, flame patterned cloak sat like a visible weight on his shoulders. Its vibrant colors seemed unusually dull. Like him – a streak of dimmed firelight, banked low.

He leapt to the second story of the rundown apartment building with as little effort as taking a step. The door yielded under gentle pressure, and he slipped in soundlessly past seals that glowed dimly for just a moment before letting him through.

Neat little seals, the intruder noticed. But then, Iruka-sensei had always been meticulous.

He heard the man even before he made it to the kitchen doorway. Leaning against the threshold, he saw the humming, long-haired figure, swaying as he sang to the child on his hip while stirring something in a pot on the stove. It was such a comfortingly domestic sight. Little fingers were curled around the man's arm, and a soft cheek laid against the dark cloth covering his shoulder.

Listening, he realized that he recognized the song.

"_Little baby in my sight,_

_Hear my song for you tonight;_

_As I hold you tight, my little baby,_

_The pretty light of my eye."_

The visitor felt his eyelids burn. He remembered those words and that voice, from days when he had also been cradled in the crook of those arms. He shuddered when the baby began singing too, his sweet little voice rising. Babbling nonsense words, but still with his caregiver – a harmony. The child's head flashed gold, bright locks a stark contrast against the man's dark colors.

"_Hold you tight until I die,_

_Tight under black and lonely sky._

_Hold you desperate while I cry,_

_And sing you a lost child's lullaby."_

The song ended with the quiet melancholy he remembered, haunting.

Thee baby yawned against Iruka's shoulder, nose rubbing on the fabric. Eyes as blue as the sky blinked over the backdrop of the room. His breath caught when they finally fell on him, widening into huge round pools that he got lost in.

"Papa!"

The squeal of pleasure was accompanied by diligent wiggling to be let down. The intruder stepped forward into the room instantly to meet the awkward steps of his child halfway and draw the soft body against his chest. A warm face burned itself into his neck, beneath his chin. Happy to tears, the child wept, crying, "Papa, papa."

He heard the footsteps before he saw their owner, and looked up into the affectionate face of his former teacher as the man wiped his hands on a dish towel. Sensei's grin widened, genuinely pleased to see him. He said, "Welcome home, Naruto."

His name, spoken by the voice he knew so well. Kind brown eyes, and that smile.

"Sensei," he greeted the man with his own grin, not aware of how dimmed it was or how tired he looked. His son rested, a soothing weight in his arms. And he was glad. So glad. "I'm glad to _be_ home."

Iruka fed him soup while he sat at the achingly familiar kitchen table. He swirled the strong green tea in his mug as he sipped at it thoughtfully, wondering that he no longer flinched at its bitterness. He was grown up now. The baby in his lap reminded him too, and he smoothed the bright, restless hair. His precious secret.

When Iruka came back from the main room, the child reached for him. "Rururu," he singsonged. "Ru-ka."

The father delivered him into steady arms. Used-to-holding-an-infant arms. Iruka rocked the little boy as the child curled close to him. "Bedtime, okay?" he said, heading for the door. Dazed, sleepy eyes watched, trancelike, as they retreated. A little wave fluttered just as he passed beyond his father's sight.

Naruto waited for his old mentor, who returned only a few moments later. The man sunk gratefully into a chair, sighing as his muscles relaxed. Naruto noticed the fine lines at the corners of his old teacher's eyes and thought, not for the first time, that he seemed prematurely aged. Yet Iruka was barely thirty.

He fidgeted with his mug. "I…I'm sorry that it's been so long since I've visited," he started awkwardly. He didn't know if he was hoping for absolution, but the man across from him only waited. It almost turned Naruto's lips up into an ironic smile, knowing better. This man had always loved him too much to just let him slid by. He swallowed before continuing, "I knew you would take good care of him."

Iruka sighed, a soft tuff of air. "He's doing well. He grows so fast, though. Growing fast, and growing bright. Like his father."

Naruto actually winced, "My responsibilities. He'd be target. I can't –"

"I wasn't implying you were doing anything wrong, Naruto."

He felt the familiar desperation. "I was so young. It was a mistake. I don't want to leave him, but now, with the hostilities at such a crisis point… I couldn't endanger him. And I trust you so much, Sensei. You'll make sure he's raised right, raised strong –"

"Naruto." The firmness of the command that was pressed into those three syllables reminded him of why this man was considered one of the greatest teachers of his time. One of Konoha's silent, forgettable legends. The man that silenced their leader with only his name. Iruka bore his eyes into him. "Naruto. You have done the very best anyone could ask for. You have the devotion of the people. We trust you. We will follow you."

Naruto buried his face in his hands. The village. The people. His weight, his own reason for aching bones and nightmares of failure. He loved them, carried the mantel he had always wanted with great pride. But sometimes even he felt the crushing responsibility. Then…then there was the little one he sometimes felt he was neglecting at such great cost.

Standing restlessly, he remained for a moment at the edge of the table, feeling lost. Unsure where to go. Iruka stood with him, concern in his eyes. He took a step towards his boy, reaching out a hand to steady him. Steady him, as solid as earth, a familiar foundation. Naruto had the sudden image of being cradled long ago, and his lullaby words:

_Hold you desperate while I cry_

_And sing you a lost child's lullaby_.

It was too much. Spontaneously, Naruto sunk into Iruka, hiding his face in his teacher's shoulder and feeling the man react instinctively, embracing him. Naruto clung to him, to the feeling of safety and the familiar smell. It was a long, long moment before he was finally able to draw away.

"Seeing you with him," he breathed, sniffling. "I remember when you used to hold me like that."

Iruka still held his shoulders. "You were a good boy, Naruto."

He snorted, "Lonely. Troublesome."

"Worth it," Iruka hissed the words directly into his face. It was important to both of them, the fierceness of his sincerity. Not to mention the sentiment itself, both of them being throw-away children.

Naruto let himself cry, for everything. He looked at the man who meant so much to him. He wasn't his father. He wasn't old enough to be. But their family was just as good, though it had taken them both a while to see it.

He didn't have to be strong here.

"I don't see him enough." His son. It was a guilt that was never sated.

Sympathetically, Iruka murmured, "You're a good father, Naruto. Raising a child while being a shinobi is no easy task."

Naruto looked into the earnest face, so sincere, so completely without any idea the implications it had for his own life. The young man looked back at his mentor, blinking through wet eyelashes. With deep, pained affection, he asked, "Then how did you ever manage to raise half of Konoha, Iruka-sensei?"


	15. Brilliant Failure

**15. Brilliant Failure****  
**Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Tsunade  
Summary: Where have all the 5-year-old jounin gone? Iruka-sensei failed them, of course.

* * *

_"__Some goals are so worthy that it is glorious even to fail." _

- Manoj Kumar Pandey

* * *

The classroom lay unnaturally quiet around him, but not uncomfortably so. The tap, tap of his stylus against the page was the only sound, but it was as familiar as this space was, even without the children. He worked steadily, possessing a kind of calm. He was home here.

"Konohamaru." His grin curled just slightly. "Your stealth skills are going to need a great deal more development if you think– " But as he turned fully, the words died in his mouth. For there was no little boy behind him, ineptly sneaking.

A low, full chuckle filled the space. "Hello, Iruka-sensei," the woman greeted him as she stepped across the threshold. Her blond tails hung over her ample bosom, and brown eyes flashed out of a deceptively youthful face. She was Tsunade, the current Hokage of Konohagakure.

Iruka wasn't certain if he was more astonished or chilled by her sudden appearance_._ Wordlessly, he set aside his pen and stood, bowing deeply. "Lord Hokage, how…strange to see you."

The woman's lips twitched as she stepped further into the classroom, eyeing the empty rows of desks. She knelt to collect a discarded paper airplane. "You were always unflinchingly honest, Sensei. It's one of the things about you I find the most annoying."

Iruka wisely chose to say nothing. He was good at this game that they played, though he admitted he was completely confused at her willing entry into his domain. Always, before, she had summoned him to come to her.

Tsunade had finished her perusal and approached Iruka's abandoned desk. Moving around it, she sunk into the chair, making herself comfortable as he watched. The little makeshift aircraft fluttered between her fingers. "Probably you're wondering why I'm here."

The teacher took a moment to consider the possibilities. His reports were up to date, and the academy had put in for hardly any property damage at all this month. His recent missions had all been successes that even she couldn't criticize, and that fiasco with the heat-sensitive tripwires and itching powder couldn't possibly be blamed on him. After all, it was hardly his fault if Konohamaru had chosen to pay attention on the day he he'd happened to use the Hokage's office as a _hypothetical_ stage for such an ambush.

Which only left Maeda Chikayo, his most resent failure. At five she would have been Konoha's youngest graduate in two decades. Would have been.

"Are you here to discuss my placement of Chika?"

Tsunade's face turned grim. "Yes," she said. "You held her back. The paperwork listed the reason as lack of maturity. Yet when I saw her perform at the last field day, I thought her techniques were quite developed."

Iruka unconsciously straightened. "While her combat skills are impressive, she is insubordinate when challenged and struggles with to work with a team. Flash bombs still startle her to the point of fatal error, and her genjutsu skills need a great deal more work."

She was also a sweet, tender-hearted five-year-old girl who occasionally sassed and cried when teased and picked her nose. She had brought a stuffed animal to the first day of class and made Iruka kiss it.

Tsunade had listened to his recital coolly. Yet when she spoke, it was to say, "These are all marginal issues, Iruka. Nothing that would keep her from graduating. Many of your advanced students pass with such trivialities."

Tersely, Iruka ground out, "The child still sucks her thumb, Hokage."

There was silence for a moment, but Iruka's statement had left Tsunade ready to show her true hand. "You're fighting a private war against child soldiers," she accused.

"I've never formally lobbied for such a thing," he said truthfully.

Eyeing him narrowly, Tsunade leaned further back in the chair, crossing her long legs over the desk. "Now you just think I'm an idiot," she said. "There hasn't been one single early graduate since you were placed in this position. Always you find some reason why they aren't 'suitable' for promotion. Ibiki claims you're beginning to make things up. And he's not the only one. Hyuuga Hiashi was in my office yesterday, beside himself with murderous thoughts about you. Something about Hanabi and a failed exam."

Iruka decided not to mention that in that case he actually _hadn't _made any pretence of failure. He'd had one Hyuuga heir under his tutelage already and he knew what kind of pressure was put on those children to perform perfectly. He could understand why Hanabi (secretly insecure by how her sister had been thrown away, privately sure it could happen to her) might, like any seven-year-old, tell a lie to redirect blame. Really it only supported his point.

Instead, he said, "Hyuuga Hiashi is an ass."

Tsunade blinked at him, her expression a combination of contention and awe. "I'm beginning to understand why he would like to kill you," she said.

Inwardly, Iruka growled. Turning his back to her, he wiped the board down with vigorous fervor to give himself time to formulate an answer at least approaching the appropriate level of respect. "Hyuuga is making a very decided attempt to send his children early to their graves," he managed in a tightly reigned voice. "Achievement means so much to him that he'd rather his little girls die as jounin than live as anything else."

The woman seemed unwilling to even touch that topic. She stated facts instead. "More than two-thirds of our ANBU ranks are filled with early graduates."

Iruka boiled. Swinging around, his remark was out of his mouth before he could stop it. "Right. Because the people beneath those masks are _so_ well adjusted!"

He could immediately tell that he had crossed a line. It was visible in the Hokage's face, in the almost audible creak as her jaw tightened and in the slow build of her chakra. "Iruka," she began, the moderate tone doing nothing to hide the fact that she was furious. "I am growing very tired of your insubordination."

There was nothing to do but bow. "Forgive me, Lord Hokage," he apologized.

The Godaime must have been able to tell that he meant it, because she appeared mollified. Sitting back in the chair once more, she gave a long sigh. She looked weary in that moment, even old. It was strange for Iruka, who had only seen her angry or commanding. It made her look too much like the Sandaime, and he dropped his eyes.

"Iruka," Tsunade said. She'd never spoken to him without a razor's edge or false sweetness, yet this was neither. Whatever it was, it was tinged with exasperation. "Do you know that, in all the village of Konohagakure, no one has dared cause me as much trouble as you have?" And before a surge of pride or belligerence could rise in him, she remarked, "Nor has anyone else's fate so preoccupied my mind. I don't know what to do with you. Part of me would like to send you off to meet with an unfortunate accident."

Iruka waited, tense by the chalkboard.

"On the other hand," she continued after a moment. "I am also beginning to see why that old coot felt so strongly about you." The Third. She was talking about the Third. "At first I couldn't understand why he'd put so much personal investment in an irritating, opinionated, short-fused chuunin with such unorthodox views. I'd been out of the loop a long time, and you didn't do very much to ingratiate yourself to me." She paused for long enough to take a breath. "It took me a while to see past _you_ and look at your children. They're living their lives with a different ninja philosophy than I did. At first I wondered where they learned it." She was giving him a hard look.

Iruka refused to appear in any way apologetic, though he did feel a thrill of fear run through him. Reeling, almost dizzy, he thought, _'She's not just going to put me on the active list. She'd going to take me away from the academy.'_ He told himself he shouldn't be surprised; it was a wonder she had left him here this long. Yet still his insides twisted.

"Your students are attracting attention in the wider world, Sensei," Tsunade continued. "Many of the Hidden Villages have developed the belief that Konohagakure has grown weak in peacetime. Then there was the chuunin exam, and now they're wondering if they were wrong."

The teacher had given up trying to understand all that his leader was telling him. The positive and negative in her words were at war, and he wasn't sure which was winning. He was certain his future and the lives of his students hovered in the balance of it.

"The world is looking at our newest generation and, for the first time, they are wondering if we are as weak as they thought us. But even as they wonder, I already know. And what I know is that, though many of these children show exceptional strength and ability, in the end they are still children. And that, Sensei, is a failure on your part."

For a long moment, Iruka was stone. Then he said, "You are chastising me…for treating them like children?"

"I appreciate your devotion to your students," the woman answered, and pushed herself to her feet. She was shorter than him, but her presence was so great that she seemed to fill the room. "I can even appreciate how long you've managed to make your point without coming forward as an agitator. It's a kind of prowess I'd like to see used for the good of my administration rather than so firmly opposed to it.

"But," she continued. "I look at our graduates and I still see infants. This isn't a luxury we have anymore. I need them to be experienced ninja by their age, not raw, emotional adolescents as likely to die by accident as for this village."

Iruka's voice began quietly, but it grew with each word that he spoke until it was a roar in his ears and out of his mouth. "That is the real story, isn't it?" Iruka demanded, his face burning and his temples throbbing with anger. "It's not about their lives, it's about _resources_. If you send a baby out to battle and they die, then what have you lost? _My_ children have cost you twelve years of training and supplies. So if _they_ die, you've lost your investment. The risk of sending them early to make or break offers you a better _return_." His voice was shuddering violently with emotion. He spat at her, "_That's disgusting_."

"You can't protect them forever."

Iruka's eyes were blazing. "No. But this is so right that even failing is worth fighting for."

Silence perforated the classroom once more. It echoed around all the benches and the hollow corners, a living thing with its own heartbeat. It thrummed in Iruka's ears, already scarlet with his own blood. He was angry, so angry, but below the surface, he was also terrified. No amount of scraping or apologies would take away those words. He'd been walking a knife's edge and now he feared he had fallen onto it. What would she do with him now?

The Godaime seemed to be considering the same question. Her eyes were colder than he had ever seen them. "Umino-sensei," she finally intoned. The formality reminded him he was a solider and his back straightened against his will. "By all the powers of heaven and earth, I don't know where you get the gall to speak as you do. How you've managed to live so long with such a temper is beyond my understanding. It is deeply, deeply foolish. But…perhaps also somewhat admirable."

Her words were so unexpected that Iruka could only stammer, "L-lord Hokage?"

"You're crazy," Tsunade repeated. "But also crazy brave. A guardian like none I've ever seen. And despite everything, I think our children could do worse than you."

Iruka was stunned. "So, you don't intend to kill me, then?"

She made a face. "I'd like to put you over my knee for being such a brat. But no, I'm not going to punish you, Iruka. Not for acting as a teacher should. You speak boldly," and here she grimaced, "but not entirely without truth. I don't agree with you on this subject; our graduates aren't ready to do what they must.

"However," she halted Iruka's protest with a hand. "However, perhaps times are not yet so grave that we need send out five-year-olds."

The admission brought the sensation of a flood to Iruka. For so long, he had felt as though he were a dam. He'd never expected to hear such words from his leader. He didn't know whether to trust his relief.

Tsunade was watching him critically. Not for the first time, he was reminded how formidable a woman she really was. "I'm glad we had this talk, Iruka," she said, and then she turned towards the door.

Iruka watched her go, conflicted. His mind ran fast with all that had been said, and perhaps something else that still needed to be. He gathered his courage. "Lord Hokage," he called, and she paused at the threshold. For a moment, he almost capitulated, but he was made of tougher stuff than most credited him for. "I feel the need to warn you that I'll defy you again when it comes to this."

The Hokage sighed, long and belabored. "Yes, well," she began, yet when he caught her eye, he realized a wicked glint had made its way there. "I suppose Konohagakure could suffer _one_ pigheaded agitator."

Except it would never be just one, not if he or his children had anything to say about it. "Better than to be the village idiot," Iruka chuckled. His knees felt a little weak.

Tsunade shook her head. "The role is already taken, though hotly contested. I've never known a village so full of idiots. I'd like to blame you for that too –" Iruka blanched. " – but, that wouldn't be fair."

A smile overtook the teacher in spite of himself. Graciously, he bowed one final time. "Thank you, Hokage-sama."

She waved her hand at him, "Don't go getting deferential on me now," she said. "I'll start getting paranoid. I've already seen what you can do with itching powder."

Iruka was pressed to keep the sly grin behind his teeth. Solemnly, he lowered his eyes and said, "I don't know what you're talking about, Lord Hokage."


	16. Old Friends

**16. Old Friends**  
Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Kakashi, Ibiki  
Summary: Kakashi and Iruka chat about an unexpected mutual acquaintance.

* * *

It had started when Konohagakure's most infamous interrogator had casually waved at him in a public tea house. Normally, Iruka would have been there alone, and it wouldn't have mattered. However, today he had been sitting with someone else, and – perhaps because of it's offhand, informal nature – the passing greeting had spawned curiosity in his companion.

"How do you know him?"

Iruka eyed Kakashi over the aromatic steam drifting up from his cup and considered what he was comfortable divulging. His friendship with Kakashi was a strange one, born out of common friends and students, a little loneliness, and the odd attraction that sometimes grew spontaneously between two very different people. And also their not-very-different desire for privacy.

"We're old friends," Iruka finally decided. And sure, there had occasionally been time for the exchange of a few words (strangled, murmured, or gasped) during his training under the man.

It worked because Iruka had never taken the professional aspect of their association personally; it was business, work, and nothing more, and perhaps that was why they had managed to maintain something of a relationship outside of that. After all, it was the Sandaime – who had been very fond of Iruka – who had first given his name to the T&I Department all those years ago.

Over time, Iruka thought Ibiki had grown fond of him too. And for that reason he had showed no mercy. A friend would want him to be ready.

"One it not just friends with Ibiki," Kakashi interrupted his thoughts, and his eye narrowed with suspicion. Iruka met his gaze unflinchingly and applied his very mildest I'm-only-a-desk-working-teacher expression. This still worked with Kakashi sometimes, but only because deeply ingrained perceptions took a while to wither.

Iruka looked around at the quietly milling persons, many of whom he knew by name, and most of the rest by strength of personality. They assumed that they knew him too, even the very brightest of them. Even the geniuses, he thought, and smiled. Yet these people that thought of him as the soft academy sensei did not understand his true ruthlessness, even if maybe they should. After all…

He looked askance at the hidden weapon shielded beneath white hair and thin metal in the face of the man just across from him, and reflected that it wasn't just the fox that was careful sealed away for Konaha's use.

They were all vessels.

When it became clear that Kakashi had no intention of dropping his inquiry until he was truly satisfied, Iruka chose to ask him a question. "What is the only thing more important to the safety of the village than its nin?" he asked.

A thoughtful look clouded the face of Hatake Kakashi, famed and valued Konaha jounin. Perhaps their most valued. Especially for someone like him, it was the right question. Finally, he answered, "Information."

Iruka nodded. Kohaha nin were the heart of the village, but like all military states, it was only as strong as the head that directed it. Information was what kept Konaha's shinobi alive, and they, in turn, protected Konaha. He sipped his tea, leaving his companion to mull it over, and wondered about his foolishness speaking to his something-like-a-friend about such things. It was more information about himself than he usually gave out. Still, he trusted Kakashi.

And also, maybe it was just a little selfish. He had so few real friends. It would be nice if his first outside of purely professional circles – and over the age of twelve – didn't think of him as useless or replaceable.

After all, he may have been a receptacle, but he served his purpose just like everyone else.


	17. Cleaning Up

**17. Cleaning Up****  
**Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Naruto  
Summary: Iruka never used to care what his apartment looked like, but Naruto is a force of change.

* * *

_"We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own."_

- Ben Sweetland

* * *

The morning came as it often did in late spring – muffled with streams of water. Outside the sky was as grey as moist plaster, thick with a mist of rain that made the apartment seem even more shadowed and dim. A damp smell hung in the air, and it made the weight of the toddler feel unusually heavy. Iruka shifted his burden, grimacing at the ache in his hip. Old injury.

Clinging to his neck, Naruto hung like a limpet. The clean, familiar smell of his sensei's loose hair lay by his nose, and he buried his face in it further, already nearly dozing. "Hey you," Iruka protested, rubbing the child's back firmly. "Stop drooling down my neck."

A burbling laugh answered, which quickly became a squeal as Iruka pinched him playfully. Drawing Naruto back, the young man observed the boy, whose face still looked a little mashed and red from pressing against the pillow. Naruto yawned.

"What a cavern," Iruka commented.

Another sleepy giggle. "Empty," Naruto informed him, pointing deep inside his hollow mouth.

"Empty, and what does that mean? Surely you don't expect any breakfast?"

"Ramens!"

Iruka looked at him with slitted eyes, unimpressed. He castigated, "Ramen is not a breakfast food."

Of course, this foolish notion of dietary timeliness did not impress Naruto. He was four-years-old and fully convinced that anytime was a good time for ramen. He pressed Iruka's cheeks between his palms, forcing his guardian to turn his head towards the high cabinet. "Ramens," he said decidedly, reaching for the wooden door plaintively.

It was easier to acquiesce than to fight, especially so early in the morning. So he lowered Naruto to the floor and filled a pan with water, setting it on the stove.

"Cold, cold!" Naruto padded on the floor with his bare feet. To escape the frigid panels, the boy stepped up clumsily onto the insteps of his sensei's feet, hugging the man's knees to keep from falling off. Iruka smiled down at him without comment, obligingly leaning closer to the counter so that he had something to brace his back against.

As the first nest of bubbles were being born on the stove top, Iruka reached for a fresh ramen packet, surprised when only half of one came to his searching hand. The young man frowned at the crumbling grizzle of noodles. It would hardly keep Naruto full until midmorning. Sighing, he added a little more hot water to the already simmering pot.

While they were waiting, Iruka tugged at a stray blond spike of hair sticking up amidst the sleepy muss atop Naruto's head. "Milk?" he asked.

The grip around his knees tightened. "Juice."

"Not tea?" Iruka grinned when the boy responded with a revolted, pinched expression. He filled Naruto a glass and watched intently while Naruto sipped awkwardly around the broad rim, gulping with a contented sigh.

A purplish smile beamed up at his teacher afterward. Proudly, the child said, "Two hands!"

"Very good," the adolescent praised him.

The water burbled and Iruka drew himself a mug full before adding the noodles. He fished for his jar of instant tea, dug chopsticks out of a drawer, and grabbed a bowl from the sink. Minutes later Naruto was eagerly following him and his steaming breakfast to the table. It was easy for the boy to claim a spot in Iruka's lap; it was still far too early to say 'no' more than half a dozen times.

Naruto drew his meal toward himself immediately, and bit shark-like into a great mouthful.

Iruka tsked. "Don't chew on the bowl," he commanded. "You're a boy, not a beast." Naruto swallowed hard and bore his teeth, growling as though he were indeed a monstrous creature. Iruka tapped his nose. "Enough. Even if you really were an animal, I'd still make you eat like a human being. Use the chopsticks."

Naruto frowned at the offered utensils, the full mastery of which still eluded him. Even so he allowed Iruka to patiently mold his fingers around them, and for a while thereafter there was only the hiss of the rain on the streets below and a steady panting on the roof and window pane. Iruka sifted his tea, sipping it as he came awake.

Meanwhile, Naruto tried ineffectively to pincer the noodles, one chopstick in each hand.

When he noticed, Iruka gave an affectionate huff and massaged the sticky little palms. "Naruto," he said, exasperated. "How do you always end up covered with your food?"

"It's leaky," the child protested.

It was true, unfortunately. Iruka evaluated the cheap, spider webbed porcelain, chipped and worn. "Maybe we need to invest in some new dishes," he suggested.

Naruto, the set of chopsticks now clutched in one fist, observed the growing puddle seeping from beneath the bowl. Somberly, he looked up at his guardian. "I don't mind licking, Sensei," he said, and leaned over, tongue extended. Only Iruka's restraining arm across his chest stopped him from lapping the sticky goo off the table.

"Yes," the young man firmly decided. "We're getting some new things."

It wasn't right for Naruto to grow up in such an unkempt place. And it was more than just the dishes. He took in the peeling paint and vague, musty smell of neglect. No furniture besides the table, sink, and stove. No decoration. It was as grey as the outside; empty.

He'd been issued this apartment two year ago, toward the end of the reconstruction, and since then he'd been little motivated to make it his own. He'd never called it a home; it was just a place. But – he looked down on the little boy seated on his lap – things had changed. Naruto deserved better than this dreariness, even on Iruka's salary.

Maybe it was time to exorcise the ghosts.

* * *

Excursions were always a special treat, even on such a dreary day.

It wasn't so very long ago that Naruto had feared the market – that bright, crowded place full of color and smell – but so long as he held tight onto Sensei it was okay now, and by the time they got home they were burdened with purchases.

They got new dishes – bowls and bright new cups. Naruto had been drawn to the loudest, brightest orange mug they had, though unfortunately his attempt to draw attention to it had resulted in the handle breaking off. The shopkeeper had grimaced, but not with anger. Chuckling, he'd consoled Iruka. "Glue, Sensei."

A bright floral display had distracted him as they made their way carefully along the wet streets, and Naruto tugged Sensei's hand until he agreed to stop and enter. He recognized Yamanaka Ino immediately. She stuck her tongue out at him, not unkindly, and he buried his face shyly in Iruka's kneecaps.

Her father made an appearance, grinning wryly at his two young customers when he heard Iruka's request for a sturdy, non-toxic plant that could stand being chewed on. Naruto named the floppy houseplant Geoffrey, and Iruka brought it home under his arm while Naruto shuffled slowly behind, carrying the little bag with his new cup, holding the straps carefully with both hands.

The new dishes went into the cupboards, and Geoffrey found a home next to Naruto's messy futon. The last objects drawn out of the bag were carefully wrapped in brown paper. Sensei folded his legs and Naruto plopped down happily beside him, eagerly tugging on the package in wordless supplication. Open.

Naruto squirmed as the best new thing of the whole day slipped out, hugging the photograph to his chest. Iruka had let him choose the frame. It was blue like waves. "Like you, Sensei," he had explained. He loved it. Like he loved Sensei.

Both looked at the photo now: Naruto and Iruka stood side by side, Naruto pressed close to his guardian's side while the adolescent knelt, one arm around him. Naruto's bright smile was like a burst of sunlight, and while Iruka's grin was more reserved, it was as steady as sitting by a stove with frozen toes: warm.

"It's a good picture." Sensei had his arm around Naruto now too, and when he leaned forward it made his ponytail fall across his cheek.

"What about the other one?" Naruto asked. He referred to the plain wooden frame they had also purchased, empty for now. When he picked it out, Iruka had said, _'Well, if we're going to decorate with memories…'_

They hadn't put up the beds this morning, and so they remained in a lazy, rumpled heap nearby. Sensei leaned back and put his hand beneath his pillow. "Here it is," Iruka said, drawing out a stiff square and holding it in front of them where Naruto could see.

"Oh," the child said, surprised by the image of a little boy. Naruto wasn't sure quite how he knew that it was Sensei, but it definitely was – standing in a yellowing, crumpled, water-spoiled picture.

"It was damaged," Iruka explained needlessly and there was a little puff of breath near Naruto's ear, like a sigh. "I found it in my old home. It's very special to me because I lost most of the pictures I had of my parents. You reminded me of it when you said we needed a family picture to remember. I thought it was time I stopped shoving this under an old pillow. It's already in pretty bad shape."

It was easy to hear the grief underlying Iruka's voice. Sensei was a sensitive person, and Naruto understood that thinking of his family must still hurt him. He started at the photograph reverently. Sensei looked so small! Between the two adults he was dwarfed, and Naruto wondered why his parents didn't kneel down like Iruka had in their picture. He traced the scar that already stood across Iruka's nose, though his dark hair was still too short to be tied up. There were fingers over his shoulder, long tan fingers that Naruto swore he knew.

He followed them up to the man also standing there. He was tall, and broader than Sensei was. Handsome with a well-tended mustache. Naruto smoothed the fine wrinkles weaved over paper that was as soft as skin. It seemed warm like skin too, like the image lived through the hand that gently cupped it. Naruto stared into the twin dark eyes of the two adults.

Neither were exactly like Iruka-sensei's eyes, but they were both full of water. The mother's were like a deep pool, black as an untouched place. The father's resembled mist and raindrops – everywhere, and a little wild. For some reason the intensity in those eyes was a little frightening, and Naruto looked up to find the more familiar waves, steady and rhythmic, in and out. Iruka smiled.

"What were they like?" Naruto asked.

A shift of hips beneath him, and Iruka let go of a breath. "They were complicated people," he answered finally, eyes never leaving the photograph.

Naruto thought that was a funny way to describe it. "Did they love you?" he wanted to know. It seemed like the only question that really mattered.

Iruka shrugged helplessly. There were extra creases in his face, troubled lines. His shoulders bent heavily.

"You're not sure?" the boy inquired.

Sensei shook his head. "I haven't always been what they would have wanted. Some of what I've done since…" His voice became raw, but then he paused and composed himself, closing his eyes and clearing his throat. Calmly, he tapped his father's face, seeming far away. "It was always hard to please him. Sometimes I'm afraid they can't be proud of me anymore."

Unable to stand the look on Sensei's face, Naruto blurted, "Sensei, they're dead." Instantly, he realized that had been a mean thing to say and he stammered hastily, "S-sorry."

Fearful that he'd made Sensei upset, Naruto gazed searching into Iruka's face. However, instead of anger, he saw was wonder. Sensei looked at him like that sometimes, like he was kind of amazed. The tense moment passed, and a thaw came to Sensei's face. It smoothed out the crumbled, care-worn lines and the remaining uncertainty. Iruka smiled at him fondly.

"You're right," he said. "They're just memories now."

"We can put them together," Naruto offered, pulling up his own squiggly blue frame and grinning at it. He looked around the room for just the right spot. Distractedly, he murmured, "Our family pictures."

He wasn't expecting the sudden ambush, but Naruto liked cuddles, so he let himself be hugged. Caresses, then – raked through the roots of his hair. He giggled happily, and Sensei held him tight.

A torch, a bright light. They illuminated one another.


	18. Force for Good

**18. Force for Good**

Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Genma, Kakashi

Summary: Iruka-sensei decides to take a day off from being beneficial to the universe. This is more difficult than he thought it would be.

* * *

One morning, for no discernable reason, Umino Iruka woke up bone-hollow exhausted.

Dragging himself up from his twisted nest of blankets, he allowed his neck fall backward lethargically and stared at the ceiling, still blue with shadow. Ordinarily, he would have been scrabbling to get ready for the academy. There, he would teach classes all day before heading to the missions desk for his shift. The evening would be filled with civilian students and then finally dinner with whatever orphan or runaway turned up at his door with sad, sad eyes.

In fact, he spent most of his days like that – looking after children, completing his work. Dutiful, dependable Iruka-sensei. Ordinarily, that was a role that he enjoyed. However, today he wondered if he was finally burning out. Shinobi who became overly immersed in their work became dull-eyed, lusterless. People needed something for themselves to function in a healthy way, yet sometimes Iruka felt as though his whole life was taking care of other people.

Then a peculiar thought came to him. "Perhaps I just don't," he pondered aloud.

It was an intriguing thought. Perhaps he just didn't – didn't care, didn't teach, didn't pat any heads, or meet any needs. Perhaps he just…slacked off. Took a holiday. The teacher fought off a tingle that rolled through him as he mulled over the idea. Could he even do it?

He got himself off to a good start by eating his breakfast standing at the edge of the kitchenette that overlooked the rest of his neat apartment. Experimentally, he nudged a picture frame hanging on the wall so that it hung sideways.

Initial tension, and then release. He could do this; he could defy his nature.

"I'm going to be a lazy, rotten good-for-nothing today," he told himself, licking his fingers. "Just see if I help anyone."

He left his home, eager to get along with his plan, but almost immediately he ran into trouble.

He was meandering across the village in what he hoped was a shiftless, indolent way when he happened to encounter a cluster of pre-teen boys who were obviously ditching classes, absorbed in the rowdy task of chalking a crude effigy of the Godaime on a prominent wall.

Iruka's nose wrinkled. It was just the kind of behavior he would ordinarily have punished, and he had to remind himself that _today_ he was not a disciplinarian. Let them draft graffiti all over the walls for all he cared. He would cheer them on, he'd…

_Wait._ What where they doing now?

They were throwing things at the image of the Godaime, goading one other as each took turns handling the knives and pitching them towards the expansive charcoaled cleavage. Obviously untrained, their grips were inexpert at best and often dangerous. More than once it seemed likely they would draw their own blood rather than hit the target.

Iruka frowned deeply. He could hardly just walk past; they would hurt themselves playing like that. So, nonchalantly, he wandered nearer and casually confiscated a diminutive projectile. Their panic at being caught dissipated into cheers as he easily put a pin-hole through Tsunade's left nostril.

It took no great amount of time to explain the gist of the technique, to adjust a few fingers and offer a word or two of advice. Then they were disfiguring their Hokage like professionals, and Iruka retreated with a feeling of great contentedness, certain that the boys could continue defacing public property without any harm coming to themselves or others.

Which is when he stopped, as it occurring to him suddenly what he'd done. "Dammit," he swore, and scrubbed his face. "I just taught someone something."

A minor setback, he reassured himself – just habit taking over. He'd be more cautious. Obviously wandering around wasn't working. He needed go somewhere where there was no chance of him being helpful or good.

He decided to go to a bar.

At first things went very well. He ordered alcohol and sat at a barstool glowering moodily into his drink in the most unapproachable way he could manage. Attempting to scowl backfired, as the bartender – a petite woman with a generous face – inquired with concern if his stomach was upset. After that, Iruka just concentrated on swallowing.

Someone called his name, and he rotated on his stool to find Shiranui Genma standing behind him, a forced-looking grin stretching his pale face. "Sensei," he greeted in a friendly way, "I'm surprised to see you here, and so early too. Don't you have classes?"

"Not really," Iruka answered breezily, as though he had never heard of such a thing as classes before. "What about you, Genma? Have you come to drink away your sorrow?"

There was a unexplainable fissure in the surface of the man's expression. Heavily, the jounin lowered himself to the seat beside Iruka, his forehead meeting the steeple of his fingers. "You might say that," he offered, and to the chuunin's alarm his voice seemed to waver.

"A-are you okay?" Iruka asked. He fought off the instinct to reach over and lay his hand on the man's shoulder.

Genma swallowed. "Ah," he said. "Well. Samson died today."

Iruka wondered, "Samson?"

A hitching breath. "Yeah." The other shinobi nodded, and to Iruka's horror, it seemed he had actually begun to cry. "He was always so active that I hardly noticed he was sick. Then out of nowhere, I went to drizzle some flakes in his tank and he was floating right on top. Even when I nudged him, he just _laid_ there…"

Once the initial surprise wore off, the chuunin was able to process what had happened. Genma's pet had died, and while it might have seemed silly – inconsequential for the kind of man who killed living beings as a profession – Iruka knew that a life lived on the edge of death sometimes lent disproportionate gravity to the loss of small things.

This was a trap.

Iruka was well known for his ability to bring some sense to death. He'd comforted many parents, many students, and many friends suffering from great loss. But he wouldn't do it today.

His tone as unfeeling and cold as he knew how, Iruka declared starkly, "Genma, your fish is dead."

The tokubetsu jounin stopped dribbling immediately and blinked at him, wide-eyed. His jaw worked around his senbon, and Iruka braced himself for an angry response. It didn't happen. Jerking a wrist across his eyes, Genma stammered, "You're totally right, Sensei. He was a good fish, but now he's gone. Samson wouldn't want me to break up like this."

"N-no, you don't under–" Iruka tried to explain that he was attempting to be heartlessly unsympathetic, but before he could get it out Genma was leaning over and hugging him.

"You're such a good guy, Iruka," he mumbled with great sincerity.

The teacher accepted the praise and the crushing embrace with resignation. To himself, he thought. _'Somehow I just met someone's emotional needs.'_

Things did not improve as the day passed.

One the way across town, he tripped and fell across a puddle an old lady was about to step into. He was run over by an escaping pickpocket, accidentally fed the hungry, and saved a crumbling marriage by telling a squalling woman that she was ugly.

After she finished moping off the blood from Iruka's face, she told him tearfully, "It was so brave of you to bait him into punching you like that."

The apologetic husband stood protectively close to his wife. "She's right. I had lost sight of how much she means to me. Having to defend her brought back how wonderful she really is."

Iruka just nodded humbly, by this time too discouraged to be much upset. He stepped back onto the main path just in time to walk into a young mother shopping with her squalling infant. The baby looked at him and cooed. The woman patted his arm. Iruka growled.

* * *

By the time the chuunin made it to the tea shop, he had practically given up, more and more certain he just wasn't cut out for life as a detriment to society.

It was in this state that Kakashi found him, wandering into the little shop with the vacant, how-did-I-get-here expression for which he was so famous. Iruka barely glanced up at him when he invited himself to slide into the booth.

"Sensei, you look glum," the copy-nin observed.

Iruka moaned expressively. "I've been trying to be a lazy, unhelpful slouch-about all day, but it just isn't working for me," he explained.

Kakashi found this to be a very confusing problem, as he'd never had trouble being either lazy, unhelpful, or a slouch-about. "Are you sure you're trying hard enough?" he asked.

The teacher looked a little unhinged, red-eyed and fidgety with frustration. "I think I'm just too nice," he shared honestly, looking upset. "Watch."

A waiter was passing by them, and Iruka stuck out his leg, tripping the man so that the tray of beverages spilled all over the front of his sweater. His eyes stretched wide, the man turned to them with oozing goo spread all down his front. "My grandmother made this for me!" he exclaimed, and Kakashi felt certain the man would dissolve into an angry fit. But he didn't. Instead, he laughed. "I can't believe it. _Thank you._ I hate this thing so much!"

Iruka looked very close to banging his head against the table as the waiter walked away, whistling happily. "I think I need to go lie face down somewhere," he commented morosely.

Kakashi was looking thoughtfully after the victim of the chuunin's fateful charity. That _had_ been pretty remarkable. To Iruka he said, " I think you need professional help."

* * *

"How on earth did you get me cleared for such a high-ranking mission, and so _quickly_?" Iruka wanted to know.

Kakashi leaned further out of the foliage he was sheltering under stealthily. A stray leaf got in front of his visible eye, and he impatiently brushed it away. "Ninja prowess," he answered shortly, and pointed to the ground below. "There he is. Now all you have to do is kill him."

The chuunin fingered his weapon with apprehension. "I don't know," he spoke uncertainly. "I don't understand how this is solving my problem."

"Obviously deliberate evil is beyond your abilities," the jounin explained, ignoring the insulted glare that the other cast in his direction. "But perhaps your inherent niceness will be offset if you use meanness for an ultimately noble purpose."

"Like killing someone?"

"He's a terrible murderer!" Kakashi _did not_ raise his voice with exasperation. "He kills woman and children and cackles over their graves. Besides, you're a shinobi, aren't you?"

"Alright, alright," the teacher muttered, adjusting his weight on the branch as he readied himself to pounce. "But honestly – throwing tantrums like a pre-genin."

There was no time for a retort before they were both out of the branches, baring down upon their quarry through the brown-green canopy. Their quarry was enormous, hulking with cruel scars drawn down his pitted face. Flinty-eyed, he seemed as though he were going to withdrew at first sight of them, but then he stopped and held his ground like stone.

Vainly. Kakashi felt certain he could have dropped the brute where he stood.

Instead, he gave Iruka a nudge and the chuunin stepped forward hesitantly. Brandishing his kunai, Iruka told the man, "I'm here to extract justice from your worthless life." It was a touch melodramatic, perhaps, but it sounded admirably harsh. A line drew down Iruka's face as he became honestly outraged. He shouted, "You terrible, terrible baby-killing murderer!"

It was at this point that the enemy shinobi should have attacked, provoked by the senseless prattle. If it had been anyone else facing him, it would have happened. Anyone but Umino Iruka.

The shinobi broke down into tears. "You're so right!" he wailed, clutching his forehead. "I've been a monster. How could I not have seen this before?"

Astonished, Kakashi watched the killer break down into a miserable, whimpering muddle. He took a staggering step forward, and the jounin almost put a shuriken through his throat, but then the man was sobbing into Iruka's hair, leaning so heavily against him for support that the chuunin almost bent over.

Starkly, Iruka patted his shoulder while the huge man drizzled down the back of his neck. "There, there," he comforted.

"This is really impressive, Sensei," Kakashi said once the shock had worn its way through him. "We better not tell Ibiki about your particular skills, or else you'll end up with a lot more A-ranked missions."

"Impressive isn't the world that I'd use to describe it," Iruka deadpanned, watching the enemy ninja, who was now wailing obnoxiously in the background. He waited patiently while Kakashi peeled the man off of him and casually put him out of his misery.

After a moment of thought, the copy-nin turned to him and asked, "If I summoned a puppy, do you think you could kick it?"

This was apparently too much. "I appreciate your efforts, Kakashi," the teacher said. "But I think I'm defying the universe. I should probably just go back to my classroom."

Kakashi could respect a man who knew when he was beaten by nature.

* * *

The very next morning, Iruka-sensei rejoined his classroom just as inexplicably as he had abandoned it. His students were disappointed; when no last-minute substitute had been available yesterday, they'd been given the day off. Now that their teacher had returned, it was back to the same old drudgery.

"I apologize for my absence," their sensei said. He was smiling very pleasantly this morning, wearing his nicest, most docile expression. The students looked at him warily. He continued, "However, I spent most of last night planning a way to make it up to you."

Growing alarm, fidgeting, sideways looks.

Warm brown eyes crinkled at them, and then the teacher pulled out a stack of stiff pages from behind his desk, revealing them with a flourish. "I made a surprise exam for you today. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

Groans, misery, wallowing. The class glared at their nice, responsible, grinning teacher. Iruka-sensei was really, really mean.

* * *

Author's Note: A humorous interlude. Please don't ask me to explain where it came from. However, I will say that teachers (especially middle school teachers) are, by necessity, the meanest creatures on the planet, no matter how gentle and nice we may appear on the outside.


	19. Spectacle

**19. Spectacle**  
Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Sasuke  
Summary: In the wake of the Uchiha massacre, Sasuke dissolves violently. No one dares rescue him. At first.

* * *

When Sasuke regained consciousness, the world around him was painted faint blue, varying only in deepness of shade. Swallowing thickly, he rolled onto his side, pausing with his cheek pressed against smooth wooden panels. His nose scrunched at the smell of the air around him. It hung heavy and sharp in his nostrils, and it was that which made him seek to get his arms under him and straighten. He wanted to get away from that nauseating odor.

A cry for his mother formed on his lips, barely caught in time. If his father or his brother were around, they would disapprove. No, he would go and find her, and then maybe she could lessen the hurt he felt.

Rubbing his eyelids to clear his vision, Sasuke fumbled to his feet, swaying unsteadily. What had happened? He reached out and found the nearby threshold by instinct. Even half-blind in the darkness, he knew that he was just inside the entryway of his own home. But where was everyone else? The prevailing dead quiet was unnatural, even in a house such as his.

"Father?" he called uncertainly into the cavernous main hall. It was so shadowed that his bleary eyes revealed no movement at all. The hesitant sun wavered into the sky against his back, barely offering light. But as the dawn lengthened and his eyes adjusted, the shapes against the floor became clear.

Before him lay his clan, stretched and torn across the floor beneath his feet. Over them hung the reek of congealing copper, thick and overpowering. For a moment Sasuke stood paralyzed, unable to understand. Then visions stirred up violently behind his eyes, sending his memory of the night before crashing down upon him.

He was standing there still, staring with vacant, derailed horror when he became dimly aware that he was no longer alone. The air buzzed with voices. He turned to face the crowd of those who had heard his first unconscious, wavering shriek. From all around the blurred dome of his vision, eyes stared at him as he stood framed against the sanguine tableau– some revolted, most shocked, and all, ultimately, judging.

It made Sasuke's breath hitch, and he stood, stricken. More memories, which until now had remained indistinct beneath the shallow waters of his mind, rose like vengeful ghosts. Red eyes blazed down upon him as clearly as though they were right in front of him, among these new condemning faces. His brother's lips drew up into a disgusted scowl: _"You're not even worth killing."_

Something inside Uchiha Sasuke broke to pieces.

Sasuke was beyond reason or help, lost in his mind where his brother was and his family had bled out before his eyes. Floundering, he fought those that reached for him, writhing and thrashing blindly. He tasted another man's blood when a hand came too close to his face, and after that the well-meaning civilians backed off to watch him self-destruct. By then the village ninja had reached the scene of what would come to be called one of Konohagakure's greatest tragedies, and they were less delicate in their attempt to contain him.

One slung a rope with deadly accuracy, and Sasuke felt the clinch of it tightening around his stomach. It clung to him like it was alive, and he twisted and screamed until his charka rose with his desperation, and he belched fire that tore through the cord, sending it up like ash.

The air whistled with metal. Instinctively the boy wrenched, and the first and second shurikin went wild. The third ripped through his shirt sleeve, pinning him to the dirt. Sasuke howled like a wounded beast.

"Get away from him with those!" Someone snarled from close by, closer than the others. Sasuke's eyes rolled as they sought the unknown threat, but the world was still lost in a burning, saline haze. Still, he could hear the new voice saying, "He's just a boy!"

And then, suddenly, someone had him.

He struggled and fought, scratching with his nails, snapping as if he'd bite – screaming in a keening, animal-like wail, but the arms tight around him were pitiless. Exhaustion was long in coming, but eventually even the Uchiha bloodline failed and Sasuke fell limp. His eyes burned. His brother's parting words to him repeated; confirmation, burden, breaking point. They mixed with his father's impossibly expectations, which he had labored under all his life.

"I've got you," the voice was calm and too close to his ear. Holding him like the child he was, chin baring into his shoulder, a little sting of grounding pain. The fear running though Sasuke was offset by the warmth of another human being. Blinking black eyes, no longer beset with rage, but now helpless and young. Sasuke let out an almost soundless cry, a questioning cry.

"Shhh, don't be afraid. I'm with you. You aren't alone. You aren't the last. You're no animal, Uchiha Sasuke. You're as human as I am."

As if in testament, Sasuke felt his fluttering, racing heart slow and steady until it matched the even beat of the man who held him. He wanted to gasp, but breath wouldn't come easily. Loneliness, exile – they crashed around him, defeated him in this moment.

Timidly, he squirmed until his arms were freed. Small hands reached slowly around the stranger's neck, his face meekly leaning a cheek against the rough material at his savior's shoulder. He breathed a small smile of relief. And Iruka held him, rocking him slowly, and murmured that he was there.


	20. Code of Honor

**20. Code of Honor**

Character(s): Iruka-sensei; Jounin

Summary: A shinobi has a disagreement with some bleeding-heart academy sensei, which results in minor bloodshed.

* * *

Honor was a fictional subject to a ninja. Fairness, a fairy-tale concept.

This was because a merciful shinobi was usually a dead one, or at least one that was bound to become so sooner rather than later. Besides, mercy was sloppy. An adversary left to drag himself away was an enemy who could come back for vengeance later. Such a possibility simply could not be afforded.

So honor was definitely fictional, but Satou – an accomplished jounin finally receiving his first genin team – didn't have a problem with fiction. At least not until three squawking brats were shoved into his lap. Academy graduates weren't supposed to be so gormless. They stared at him like dimwits when he expected them to hurt one another, and even defied orders when he insisted.

His fellows had similar problems. Insubordination. Moralizing. Their students could hold a kunai straight, but ask them to drive the weapon into an artery and they baulked. What was wrong with this generation?

Undeniably, someone was teaching fiction. So they made a field trip to the academy to see who was responsible for it.

Peering through a window, they found an answer. Inside, the class was practicing pressure points, aided by a detailed graph on the board. There were points awarded for different areas. Fatal points were least. The teacher patted them on the head when they did well. There was entirely too much smiling.

"He's conspiring against Konoha," Satou said with conviction.

His companion agreed. "Could he be an infiltrator?"

However, their third colleague just sat back and picked his teeth as he looked into the classroom. "Naw," he said. "Not a chance in the world. I know him. That's Umino Iruka."

"You know a spy?" Satou asked.

The other jounin gazed at him grumpily. "No. And he isn't a spy. He's just some crazy chuunin who thinks that life ought to be fair."

"Then he's a mental case instead of a spy," Satou growled, and he made the decision to let this Umino know how he felt as soon as possible. This turned out to be lunch time. While the children disappeared, the teacher stayed behind at his desk, humming.

To Satou, the sound grated. Shinobi didn't hum.

He didn't introduce himself when he entered, nor when he went to loom over the desk. "You're not preparing those children for reality," he accused without preamble. "And that makes you either a defector or unspeakably stupid."

Umino blinked his eyes. Nice, gentle looking eyes that made Satou want to pries them out. The teacher said, "You're one of the new jounin-sensei. You told Shouya to stab his teammate."

Apparently, in addition to being spineless and unprepared, the brats were tattle-tales as well. To Umino, he said, "He shouldn't have come whining to you."

Umino had the audacity to look cross. "Oh? And what should he have done? Slit his comrade's throat? I'm sure it was part of your training method, but you might have explained it better. He's eleven, and he's never killed anybody. Perhaps he doubts his teacher's sanity for even making such a request."

Satou was insulted. "Do you think I don't know how to teach my own team?" he demanded.

"I think you're emotionally handicapped," Umino said. "Desensitized, lonely. Probably slowly cracking."

Who the hell was this guy? "I'd like to crack _you_ in half right now," he told the teacher.

Umino didn't even satisfy him by looking conserned. "The feeling is mutual," he offered. "But the blood-stains might upset the children."

Satou sneered. "Another place then?" He didn't know exactly how this had become a life-or-death matter, but his fingernails itched. It was hard not to reach across the table.

"Okay," the teacher marked a note on his hand, presumably a reminder: _Duel with upper-level shinobi. Buy milk._ "How about this afternoon?"

* * *

Satou waited in a beam of orange sunlight, awaiting the arrival of his opponent. This would be a play-fight, a punishment more than anything, but he was okay with that. The teacher had asked for it, after all. Satou would show the chuunin something about the ninja way.

Umino showed up earlier than expected - which is to say, he showed up at all. He was even brazen enough to pat Satou on the back as though they were friendly acquaintances.

Satou responded by striking him across the face hard enough to put him on the ground. The teacher lay in the dirt, covering his wounded face. It bled and bled.

"Are you sure you don't want a fair fight?" Umino asked, even as he was dripping red from his mouth and nose. "We still could, if you wanted."

Just as Satou had expected. Mercy was something the opponent on the ground spoke about. "Fair" was for the disadvantaged. He narrowed his eyes. This didn't give him any pleasure, but he would still follow through with it. He'd make the fight short, damage him only a little. Bruise him, break something. Just so he'd remember.

"Last chance, Satou," Iruka said. He looked like a victim already with his large dark eyes and sad expression.

"No," was all the jounin said, and gathered his chakra.

That's when he exploded. It felt like being broken in half.

Umino staggered to his feet with barely a waver, still wiping his mouth with the back of his hands. The same hands that had pressed together just a moment ago, and the same mouth that had whispered, "Release."

Umino Iruka had always been good with explosive tags. They were one of his favorite weapons. So versatile, though he rarely used them on human beings, even the low charged ones he'd used today.

Satou refused to moan, though the skin on his back felt raw to the bone. Iruka gazed down at him expressionlessly with eyes like empty holes. It was then that everything clicked: the pat on the back.

The teacher said, "That was pretty despicable of me, but I wanted you to know that I do understand what a shinobi is sometimes called to do. I know that choosing to fight honorably is a disadvantage, but I'd still rather my students didn't learn to hurt without regards for consequences. I'm sure you'll help Shouya and the others become fine shinobi and learn where to draw the line; I just hope you haven't forgotten it yourself."

He departed then, and Satou was left alone on the empty field, gritting his teeth though the pain of his injuries. The sensei's demonstration had made his words poignant. Although, in the end, he couldn't really decide which of them had made their point.

* * *

Author's Note: So, this was actually a failed chapter from the old "Ripples" story, which I took down after only a few hours because of very legitimate issues pointed out by readers. I liked the basic idea about honor being a disadvantage, but I ended up exiling it to the tidbits folder and forgetting about it. This is a modified version.


	21. Eye Color

**21. Eye Color**

Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Hinata  
Summary: Hinata struggles with her bloodlimit from her earliest academy years, but maybe all she needs is a different teaching method.

* * *

Hinata's first years at the academy had been a disappointment to her family; shuriken fumbled in her hands, anxiety made it difficult to remember even the most simple jutsu, and though her father's admonitions reverberated in her face daily, nothing could make her eyes see what he wished her to see. At six-years-old, he had been close to giving up on her already.

Desolate with her ever escalating failure, Hinata found it even more difficult to pay attention in class. She would sit in her seat with her knees drawn up, feeling so tight inside that it sometimes made her physically ill. It was on one of those days that Iruka-sensei found her, cloistered in the bathroom during a lunch break.

"Hinata, are you alright?" His quiet voice sought her amidst the stalls, where she was trembling on her knees. She heard the unlocked door swinging open behind her, and then he breathed, "Oh, Hinata."

Her sensei knelt beside her while she heaved helplessly. Afterwards, he helped her wipe her mouth and carefully brushed her bangs away from her face. It was such a kind thing to do that she started to cry. The next thing Hinata knew she was dribbling tears all over Sensei's shoulder while he sat next to the toilet and patted her back without reproof or disgust.

When she'd exhausted herself completely, he asked, "What's wrong, Hinata? You've been so upset lately. What could be so bad as all this?"

She continued to leak, soundless now. Anguished, she related her failures. "My papa's so mad. I can't do anything!"

Iruka-sensei slowly nodded, accepting her explanation. He smoothed the wet, sticky lines from her face. "Maybe it's not so hard as you think it is, Hinata," he suggested. There was a pause as he seemed to consider something. Then, with an almost imperceptible tilt of his chin, he offered, "Why don't you stay after school today? I bet we can work out why you've been having so much trouble if we try together."

Her wide, white eyes strained in surprise. Training with her was always something that had to be done, never something anyone volunteered for. No one in her family wanted to work with such a hopeless pupil…or face the wrath of her increasingly frustrated father. "My papa," she protested weakly.

Iruka-sensei hushed her. "Now don't worry about that. We'll keep this extra practice to ourselves for now, alright?"

Her nod was so timorous it must have betrayed her doubt, but she didn't want to hurt Sensei's feelings by telling him that she didn't think even he could help her. So, that afternoon when everyone else had left, she obediently remained in the training yard.

Iruka-sensei greeted her with an encouraging smile when he finally emerged from the building. "Hinata, I'm glad you stayed," he said. "Are you ready to train?"

The little girl nodded, her stomach already churning with anxiety. She was surprised when Iruka sat down on the ground, gesturing for her to join him. Confused, she nonetheless did as he asked, settling on the grass.

"You're having trouble seeing people's chakra, is that right, Hinata?" Iruka guessed, waiting until she squeaked 'yes' and flushed. It was deeply shameful, and she felt wretched admitting it. Seeing her misery provoked a sigh from Sensei. He said, "I want to start by reminding you of something important."

He sounded so serious that the little girl blinked rapidly. "W-what?"

"I want to remind you that I can't see chakra either," Iruka-sensei said, and though his voice was very firm, it was also calm and clear. He said it like it was a simple fact that she must have forgotten.

"Most every ninja in this village is unable to do this, and yet we've all managed to do just fine." He paused. "I'm telling you this because I want you to understand that even if you never master your family's ability, that doesn't mean you can't graduate or become an excellent shinobi."

For a moment, Hinata thought she might burst into tears again. "But, I am a Hyuuga!" he cried. "If I can't…" In her grief, she wasn't able to finish. It was too much to even think about.

"If you can't, then there are other options," Iruka finished for her, but seeing that she was so distressed, he didn't push any more. Instead, he reached to take her white-knuckled fists in his own hands. He tsked, "Look at this. So tense. The first thing you need to do is calm down. You're so upset it's a wonder you can do anything. Take some nice slow breaths. Do it with me, in and out."

She watched his chest rise and fall, and tried to mimic the movement. To her surprise, with each long exhale she felt the worst of the tension leave her, until she almost sighed with relief.

"That's better," Iruka-sensei said. His hands loosened her fingers, and she let them lie slack. "Now, close your eyes and take one more breath. And then…open, slowly."

Hinata did as he asked, opening her eyes like she might have out of a deep, dreamless sleep. Before her Iruka-sensei shimmered silver, surrounded by living, luminescent rivers of starlight. Her breath caught, stunned and awed. She'd always seen differently, but this was something else.

The shimmering halo around him brightened, and she realized that beneath the light he was smiling at her. "Ah, there you go," he said. "Can you see me?"

Dazed, she nodded. She saw. She _Saw_. "Sensei!" she exclaimed. "I can!"

He chuckled, and the shimmer around him rippled. The energy moved and cycled. It was amazing. She could see where it breathed in and out, just like the paintings had shown in her family's most secret scrolls. Her father's voice recited in her head now, and she reached out without thinking to press against the right spots.

It was like snuffing a candle. Hinata watched her sensei go dark, her hands clasping with a audible clap. "Oh!" she cried. "Oh! Sensei, did you see?" Her delight flowed over all the weeks and months of unhappiness, leaving her weightless. Her father would be so proud of her!

"I knew you could do it," Iruka said, sounding strained.

There was a crease in his voice, and suddenly Hinata realized she was hurting him. She'd stopped up the bright lines around him, and he was dim now – his veins of energy were strangling. Panicked, she put her hands over her mouth. "Iruka-sensei!" she cried. She didn't know how to fix it!

Iruka's voice was more hoarse than normal, but still very steady. "You can do it," he managed. "Just close your eyes again, and when you open them, you'll be able to see the right places."

Her lip was trembling, but she did as she'd been told once more.

His light came back with a smooth, grateful release of breath. She trembled as she watched him recover. Then, with a little shake, he laughed. He reached to stroke her hair behind her ear fondly. Smiling, he praised her, "Very good."

She'd cried again then, but this time with joy.

* * *

Some weeks later Hyuuga Hinata was a transformed child. Her sweet disposition had superimposed itself over the aching fretfulness, her grades were improving, and her practical work grew much more consistent. For a little while, at least, it seemed things were okay.

Iruka was glad of the change. It had hurt him in inexpressible ways to see one of his students suffering like Hinata had been. It made him angry too, especially when it became clear that the fault was more in the training method than in the girl herself. She responded so well to praise and encouragement, and she practically inhaled the calmness of her instructor. He could imagine the terror that it must have inspired in her to be shouted at while she struggled.

But things were better now, much better. They'd kept up their afternoon practices. They didn't work on her _byakugan _anymore; after all, Iruka was hardly qualified to help a Hyuuga with the finer points of her craft. The skills of that clan were carefully hoarded secrets, and he knew only what everyone knew – very little. Still, Hinata seemed grateful.

So grateful that one day when he'd released the class for a midmorning break, the little girl stayed behind. He was sorting through some papers at his desk when he heard soft steps and looked up to find her fidgeting, something clasped behind her back. "Hinata," he addressed her. "Did you need something?"

She ducked her eyes shyly. "I-I have something for you, Iruka-sensei. T-to say thank you, for helping me so much."

"It's always my pleasure," Iruka assured her. "You're a very bright, talented young lady."

The child blushed crimson. She withdrew the item from behind her and pushed it up onto the surface of his desk. It sat there, a very ancient looking scroll encircled by a band marked with symbols and sealed with the Hyuuga crest. Iruka's eyes widened.

"It's okay," Hinata murmured when he ran the pad of his index finger cautiously over the mark. She ducked lower still behind the edge of his desk, but he heard her explanation nonetheless. "The curse is broken. You can open it."

Careful of the delicate parchment, Iruka eased it apart. His heart almost stopped. The detailed diagram and careful explanations around it were truly amazing, and moreover, something altogether not for his eyes. Almost dismayed, he began, "Hinata –"

"It's okay, Sensei" she reassured him again. "It's a present."

Still struggling with his astonishment, Iruka rolled the scroll back up with utmost care. He placed it inside one of his vest's inner pockets, mouthing the words to his own seal as he did so. Then he turned back to his remarkable student, who was waiting for him to say something.

He dropped his chin against the heel of his hand. He'd once heard that regular teachers often received apples from their students. Nice normal things. Not terrifyingly confidential scrolls of clan secrets. Moreover, he wondered how much this particular bestowment had cost Hinata.

Perhaps she had told her father it was for her tutor, which _was_ true in a way – and sure, her form had improved a very great deal in the past few weeks, something that was bound to have inspired at least some gratitude in the man. Iruka wondered if he should expect to be summoned before the Hyuuga family to account for himself at some point. Joy.

A clanless, unspectacular chuunin sensei, with no special skills and no known blood limit would very certainly be deemed unsuitable. They'd find her another instructor. He found the thought made him a little sad.

Looking at Hinata's white eyes staring at him out of such a sweet, pretty face reminded him that some were born to the life of a shinobi, and had no choice between that and living a more regular life. In Hinata's case, even if the worst disgrace befell her and she never made rank, she would still be bound to the fate of her family, even if it was in nothing more than baring more children to her line.

Such thoughts depressed Iruka. He was talking about a six-year-old.

He patted the pocket over his heart so that she could see him. "Thank you very much, Hinata," he told her sincerely. It was a very great gift indeed, but even more meaningful was the way she looked at him full in the face now and smiled with unselfconscious happiness. He knew that her life's struggle was just beginning. He knew that ultimately she would be unlikely to ever satisfy her father's impossible expectations.

However, for now she was his student, a little girl still learning life's most basic lessons. He hoped that she would remember the one he'd tried to teach her – the one about it being calm and sure of her own capabilities – though all the difficult years to come.

* * *

Author's Note: We're getting into some of my favorite shorts in this series, many of which involve Iruka interacting with his students and their parents as a teacher. I can relate to this part of him. Some students need your to be tough, to call them out. Others need their need to be noticed. Not every method works every time. Much like a parent, it's not about playing favorites or caring about any one student more; it's about caring about them all differently, because they are.


	22. Living Takes Wanting

**22. Living Takes Wanting**

Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Ibiki

Summary: Ibiki meets Iruka broken on a table, and learns that being human requires community.

* * *

Umino Iruka was fifteen-years-old the year they met.

At the time, Ibiki was nineteen and near the end of his apprenticeship under the interrogator who he would succeed as the head of Konoha's unspeakable forces. The man had been in decline, mid-thirties and already growing slightly unstable. Still, it was expected that he might last another year.

Ibiki remembered his superior for the soft puffs of breath that affected his speech; sometime indeterminate in the past his lips had been sewn together, and the resulting pattern of scar tissue gave him the grotesque appearance of a skull. Because of his old injury, he usually spoke quietly. But then, a true interrogator never needed volume to impress himself upon his subjects.

"You're going to find this one interesting," he said one day. They'd been moving quietly through an underground corridor in the complex that housed their trade, but stopped now before a entryway, metal and opaquely grey. Like all the doors, it locked from the outside.

Ibiki allowed his eyes to flick over the attached notation. "He's one of ours," he commented tonelessly. It was of passing note because it placed some restrictions, but even so it was nothing particularly special.

His superior hummed, a low note deep in his throat, but he didn't contradict Ibiki's assessment. "I'm giving him to you from now on," he ordered. "He's here for a second round of training. It's something you need to practice."

Ibiki inclined his head. He excelled at interrogation, but there was more to their office than the deconstruction of their enemies. Sometimes their own people knew too much, or worked in such a capacity that they needed to be taught to hold together. Or to exploit an enemy in the midst of interrogation itself.

They all had their functions.

A grip of steel grasped his elbow, and Ibiki halted, facing his mentor. Dokuro Hisou had very murky eyes, he remembered; drowned cobalt. He said, "Morino, this one is going to push your limitations. You should know; he's going to make you question the deep down darkness, and the lines you draw."

It should have whispered unease all through Ibiki, because Dokuro never warned. Yet, even so, he swallowed the advice coldly. After all he'd seen and done, he didn't believe anything existed that could still shake his convictions. Certainly not someone.

* * *

He remembered how he had adjusted the folds of his hitai-ate carefully before pressing open the heavy portal. His own scars had been pink on his back, then, and he'd still been getting used to the way people flinched.

The boy had been waiting for him, balanced on the end of the table and idling with one of the heavy leather straps. He had one arm curled carefully across his belly, and his body hung with fatigue. Yet when he looked up, Ibiki was greeted with the impression of waves. His eyes were the kind of deep brown that told secrets. It made it very easy to strike him. Easy; Iruka had that kind of face.

"You must be Dokuro's assistant," the boy said quietly, rubbing his cheek. "He always hits me first, too."

It was an unexpected reaction. Ibiki was surprised to see him so calm, so complete. These kinds of vessels were often as hollow as their namesake. But not this one. He was full of water.

Without bothering to introduce himself, Ibiki reached out and carefully extracted the young man's arm from its protective coil. Gently, he felt the tendons and the fragile bones, evaluating the damage. He flexed the swollen digits while his companion watched with those damnable in-and-out eyes.

As he probed, he marked his initial impressions. The boy was loose limbed in the way youths often were before they'd finished growing. His neck had a delicate curve to it, but he wasn't frail looking; quite soundly compact, actually – a natural athlete.

Dark colored. Unidentifiable except for that mark on his face. Soft-spoken. Later he would find out about Iruka's fierceness, his fury. But just then he was an exhausted boy with a gentle face, wavering slightly like a lamb under his hand.

He frowned at as yet another knot of healing bone came under his fingers. There were quite a few old breaks. He'd have to pull the boy's records.

"You're very kind for an interrogator," Iruka said after a moment of such treatment.

Ibiki broke a finger then. A neat break, hurtful but not crippling. Iruka responded to the pain. It rose up in his eyes like bubbles came to the surface of a pool of water. Yet he still managed to smile, somehow – sadly, and mostly with those eyes.

A little breathlessly, he murmured, "You're still kind."

Ibiki wondered how badly he was going to have to hurt Iruka before he thought differently.

* * *

At the edge of the room, Ibiki leaned hard against his braced forearms, trying privately to regain composure. Iruka lay curled on his side nearby, breathing. In a voice that sounded just a little hoarse, he spoke, "I changed my mind. I think you're suited to this."

"To hurting people?" Ibiki wanted to know. He took a deep breath to calm his jangled nerves, and moved nearer.

The boy tucked his chin in a little, drawing his nose under a forearm bent like a crooked wing. He never seemed diminished by suffering, or at least he retained a surprising element of wordless dignity. Even now it nauseated Ibiki some to imagine him in the field; sadists didn't like stubbornly intact things.

A question fell out of his own lips. "What about you then? What are you suited for?"

Iruka smiled. Ibiki wondered that his face could still make that expression, even with the pink blood foaming on his teeth. "I'm going to teach," Iruka shared. As though the context of their conversation was removed. As if his past and his function and the table he lay on made no difference.

"You're going to die in a place like this," Ibiki told him.

"No, I'm going to teach." He said it patiently, as though his companion couldn't be trusted to understand. "I like children."

The jounin pressed his hand to the flushed face of his subject. He was feverish, but still shivering. Shock, almost certainly. He'd have to apply him for some medical care. Pivoting, he went towards the passage to call someone.

Somewhere before the door, though, some niggling uncertainty made his feet halt. Over his shoulder, he asked Iruka, "Why do you think I'm suited to this?"

A simple answer: "Because you don't enjoy it."

* * *

Sometimes Iruka spoke while Ibiki straightened bones and sewed stitches. It defied the elder shinobi's experience, but his half-hearted attempts to silence him had long since failed. So they talked.

Iruka enjoyed poetry. He liked swimming and disliked snow. He had three house plants and four framed pictures and faded blue crockery and a hopelessly feral cat. He asked Ibiki about his outside life, but the jounin didn't know how to answer him.

"You should get out more, Ibiki," Iruka teased good-naturedly, while the other looked at him, mute. He'd still been getting used to humor in forms other than a sharp, biting satire.

That night, Ibiki went back to his apartment for the first time in almost a week and spent time staring around his little space. An almost forgotten photograph sat on a table, and he smoothed his finger along the dust-coated surface and remembered the smiling faces.

A faint thought wafted through him – the next time Iruka asked him, he would have something to say.

* * *

It was easier to be with people when you had something to say.

* * *

Dokuro Hisou had fragmented quietly in the end. Slit every major artery in his body and bled out steadily over a patchwork quilt, the only personal item in his barren apartment.

The higher powers had been expecting this breakdown for some time, and Ibiki took over with hardly an administrative footnote. He was sent a memo informing him of his promotion, effective immediately. The forms were already appropriated, and there were no condolences to be sent.

It caused a bleak realization to settle over Ibiki like a sheath of ice. His profession's ultimate destination was almost certainly suicide. Yet he'd long known the world was an uncompromisingly brutal place, and – with a cold certainly – he resolved himself to the eventual ignominy of an anonymous, broken death.

* * *

The interrogator wasn't receptive that night to Iruka's soft chatter. To every gentle probe he'd turned a face like stone, and he'd been more ruthless than usual in his method.

A wavering voice floated to his ear as he turned to leave. "Ibiki, I'm sorry about Dokuro."

A flutter of untoward emotion, a shadow of grief and fear. Ibiki slammed the doors on it immediately, retreating to the sterile halls.

He'd transferred Iruka under a subordinate after that, an unscrupulously malevolent brutalizer he knew would go too far. He'd become too invested in Iruka to do his job, but he wouldn't let him leave the village unprepared.

* * *

Ibiki continued to receive occasional memos about Iruka. Many of the intermittent mission reports were confidential and handled exclusively by his department. The details varied, of course, but in general they read about the same.

A string of numbers, the mission identification, status, and then the message: _Target identified and death confirmed. All relevant evidence collected. Operative sustained minor injury._

Sometimes there was a casualty report. Usually there was a hospital report. Always there was an intelligence report. Jaken, his replacement handler, was a through man.

* * *

The day Ibiki turned twenty, he sat up through the gloaming thinking of Dokuro and mortality. He ruminated on death, and rubbed his scars. Restlessly sifting through the reports, messages, and transcripts on his desk, he tried to distract himself. Amidst them, a personal note came to his hand and his fingers stilled atop it.

Carefully, with some suspicion, he withdrew the letter from the others and lay it open in his hand. The paper was blue as a caress, as a kind word. He read:

_"Jaken told me about today, and I wanted to send my happiness for you. I hope you have someone who will drag you out of here tonight. It's too depressing a place to be on your birthday. Best wishes, Ibiki. Your friend, Iruka."_

The interrogator shifted the card back and forth between his hands, his thoughts scattered. Dokuro had never had anyone, acquaintance or companion. No one had celebrated his life or noticed his death.

Ibiki tipped open the card and read it again.

* * *

04499. B-9758-TI. COMPLETE. _Target indentified and death confirmed. Deviation from mission requirements: Camp deconstruction confirmed. 562 non-combatants liberated. Operative sustained minor injury._

* * *

It was with an implacable expression that Ibiki cracked open the room and strode inside. Iruka looked wane, but Ibiki had read the full mission report, and frankly, he was surprised to see him sitting up.

He hadn't seen Iruka in some time, too busy, recently, for human interaction. He worked like a man who heard time rattling around every corner, bringing death with it. There was a flicker in the brown eyes as they lifted, recognition. Dimly it registered to Ibiki that Iruka was glad to see him.

"This is a mess." He threw down a sheath of papers by the young man's thigh. It was a list of names, refugees that were now the responsibility of Konoha. A little of the gladness in Iruka's eyes receded to low tide, but – the elder thought mercilessly – he should have known that a personal intrusion like this could mean nothing good. Ibiki accused, "You deliberately exceeded your orders."

"I completed my mission," Iruka answered him.

"You redefined it," his superior snapped.

A hint of stubbornness crept into Iruka's expression. He dropped his eyes as though to hide it, but that did not stop his words. "I couldn't leave them."

"And well you paid for it." He resisted the urge to bare his fingers into the shoulder blade where he knew an especially ugly wound would still be mending. It would have been an act of anger, not professionalism.

"There were human lives involved, Ibiki," Iruka said. He met his superior's gaze, chin to chin, and bit his lip as though steeling his nerve. "And maybe if you left this place once in a while, that would still mean something to you."

Behind his impassive face, Ibiki processed his reaction. For though he had known glimpses of Iruka's fierceness of spirit, he had never yet known his defiance. What's more, mixed into that rebuke was unmistakable concern.

It made Ibiki furious.

"I'd like to know who the hell you think you are." The tone Ibiki used was his most even, yet it seethed with an intensity belied by it's volume. "A savior, maybe? No, you're disposable. Something to use and throw away. _That's_ what you are."

It was saying something that, despite all that Ibiki had done to him, nothing had ever put that look on Iruka's face. He stammered, "Don't say that."

The interrogator bore in without mercy. "Is it hard to face the truth? Or do you really think that a smile could cover what you've done and what's been done to you? You don't need scars to be marked by this place, Iruka."

Something hysterical, something out of his understanding was coming upon the older shinobi. It clawed up from somewhere deep, where it had been drawing blood from him for a long time. He believed what he said. He believed it with every increasingly stillborn beat of his heart.

It burned in his face, and Ibiki gestured around them a little wildly, to the concrete, the restraints. "This world. It devours you. It's what we were made for – you and I. We're going to _die like this_, without ever meaning anything to anyone."

"You're wrong." Iruka was shaking his head. His complexion was milk under the thin mark across his cheeks. "I'm meant for something else."

"To be a_ school teacher_?" the interrogator barked a harsh laugh. "As if anyone would allow you near their children."

He faced the door. The flare was dying down, until now it sat like a lump of charcoal in his breast.

Ibiki said, "You'll do as your told. I don't want another report like this."

Iruka sat there quietly. He always sat there quietly. But as the door to the hall swung open, Ibiki heard the young man hiss at his back: "You're wrong!"

Yet as he was leaving, Ibiki thought he saw Iruka rub his eyes with the heel of his hand.

* * *

04582. A-5830-TI. FAIL. _Target identified and confirmed. Organization more comprehensive than projected by intelligence. Operative ransomed by third-party. Moderate injury; signs of breakdown._

* * *

"Where is he?" Ibiki asked. He didn't bother with conversation. He and Jaken interacted little, and there could be no confusion about whom he spoke.

The other shinobi shifted his body back from his paperwork, pulling off the dark rimmed glasses that were so strange on his dangerous face. He looked at his superior dispassionately. "I sent him home. There was nothing left to do here."

"You worked with him afterward."

It wasn't a question, but Jaken inclined his head anyway; affirmative. He disclosed, "I did a lot of harm. I was afraid he would break up otherwise."

Ibiki didn't say anything. Few people were bent enough to understand the logic of their trade enough to grasp the implications behind that message, but he knew. They couldn't afford to be gentle with Iruka. They couldn't allow what happened on a mission to be the worst thing. Yet even he didn't know that he could have been so cruel.

He was still too close to Iruka.

"Status?" he asked, a bit numbly, as though the words were formed in a different mouth.

His subordinate was looking at him significantly, and Ibiki had the flickering notion that he had some measure of feeling for Iruka too. Not true care; Jaken was a sociopath, pathologically incapable of empathy. Yet obviously even he felt a twist of something. Very frankly, he said, "I don't know. He's given me no precedent for this. Maybe if he's not dead tomorrow."

The senior interrogator felt a private chill. He thought of Dokuro's bloody rug.

The dark haired specialist pushed a bag across the desk to him. It had been sealed, but the tag was broken. "It was sent back for analysis," Jaken explained. There appeared to be a soft, amorphous pile inside it, livid maroon in color. In response to Ibiki's inquiring eyebrow, the man supplied, "It's what's left of the child."

Briefly stiffening shoulders, a hand passed over a fissured face. Ibiki swore.

* * *

The apartment was completely dark as Ibiki came upon it. Not a light, or a flicker of presence. Yet he knew that the one he sought was here; he'd long ago established Iruka's cloister of devastation. He went to the kitchen and found the blue crockery in a cabinet. A mottled tabby hissed at him from beside the sink, but he ignored it. He didn't seek out Iruka until he had something warm and steaming in his hand.

It wasn't hard to find him.

Ibiki crouched, reaching to press his heavy palm against Iruka's shoulders. It was an intimate way to touch him; like a close friend. Yet Ibiki did know Iruka intimately, and Iruka knew him too, perhaps with a greater insight than most others alive.

"Iruka." He'd said that name only a few times, ever. Names gave people dignity. "Iruka. Look at me."

The young man was accustomed to his command. His chin untucked reflexively, and though afterward he wavered as though fighting his will, eventually his eyes made it to Ibiki.

Damn.

The man took in the pieces with a practiced eye, but it was with a neglected organ in his body that he responded. Thumping onto the floor somewhat inelegantly, he put his weight against Iruka's side. He handed over the mug that he had pulled from the cabinet, pressing the searing porcelain into the clammy, nerveless hand.

A streak of tea remained as residue against his own palm. "You need to get some new dishes," he ordered, and the other looked at him, steam curling around his dilated eyes. Then he turned his face away and his shoulders seized. He choked hard on a painful, incredulous sound – a laugh's stillborn cousin.

Simple things. Ibiki watched him sip through the whole cup, watched the tension marginally ease. By the time the dark head had listed against the slope of Ibiki's shoulder, the older shinobi had lost the worst of his fear.

He gave a little tug, drawing the younger man a little closer under his arm. Then he sighed. Before his last birthday, he would never have considered an intervention of this sort. Maa, he really was too close to Umino Iruka.

* * *

The interrogator sat stiffly against the back of the chair, his eyes listing around the candle-lit room in a distracted way that was uncharacteristic of him. The low light made harsh planes of his face, aphotic where the long gaps ran in his flesh and along the groves of his deep frown.

Without explanation, he said, "He can't keep doing this."

The elderly man pressed his fingertips together in a steeple, a troubled line drawn down the center of his face. The alluvial ridges spreading away from his eyes seemed more pronounced.

Ibiki continued, more firmly this time. "Find something else for him."

The Sandaime sighed, a soft puff of breath in a room filled with the smell of ancient parchment and ink and hot wax. He had very black eyes when he wore this skin; ruthless military leader, chattel owner. He tapped the file before them with one long finger; it looked grey and old in the strange illumination. "There will always be something," he said.

"There will always be something," the man across the table agreed. He asserted his passionate belief, "But he's worth more than this."

A shrewd glint entered the Sandaime's wizened eyes. He took in the man before him, the stubborn set of his chin on a face where usually there was no expression at all. He looked and saw how Ibiki had been changing.

Sarutobi was not an unreasonably hard man. He was a grandfather, a mentor, and a teacher as well as a murderer of murderers. His lips curled like a crackle of rice paper, and he ducked his head. Strange, remarkable little Iruka – he thought, as he often had – working out such a defender.

He looked across the desk into the waiting face of his head interrogator, anxious and stiff and fervent. He was prepared to fight for this, but his Hokage wouldn't make him.

Instead, he agreed, and reached for his stylus. "You're right, Ibiki. I'll see what I can do."

* * *

When Umino Iruka was seventeen-years-old, he'd been given a placement at the ninja academy, teaching children. At the end of his first day, Ibiki had show up and waited for him outside the gate.

Iruka grinned when he immerged upon the unlikely form. "Told you," he said, almost smugly. He had a damnably though spirit, the chit.

"I thought you might like to celebrate," the jounin offered his younger colleague. It was strange seeing him in this light, under the sky and the sun. He seemed more sturdy, tall and well. His skin was a better color too, the bruises just faint blots, insignificant to the greater whole.

It would be strange to sit across from this living version of the ghost he knew. But with any luck, he wouldn't be seeing much of Iruka professionally anymore.

Iruka couldn't hide how much Ibiki's offer obviously pleased him. Still, he teased. "I don't know. I wouldn't want to overwhelm you with society."

"I'm getting used to socialization," Ibiki said. And he was. He had connections now to other places and people than the concrete complex and those who came under his hands.

The new teacher wore a satisfied expression. "I'm glad," he said. "You work in such a depressing place, and I hope never to visit again. But I'd miss you."

The admission meant more to Ibiki than he would have expected. Carefully, he tucked it away, like he'd tucked away the blue card. He stretched his face.

"Whoa, scary." Iruka's eyes widened. He asked, "You know how to smile?"

Ibiki was remembering how. Just like he was remembering how to live.

* * *

Author's Note: Writing this piece actually took me to a darker place than I wanted to go, and it's certainly stretching a little in so far as cannon is concerned. Still, it interested me to imagine how Ibiki and Iruka might have interacted if my postulation from _Strangely Together, Uniquely Apart_ was true, and this was the result.


	23. Coming of Age

**23. Coming of Age**

Character/relationship: Iruka-sensei, Konohamaru, Udon, Moegi  
Summary: Iruka's students grapple with one of the many contradictions of shinobi life, and Udon might be growing up a little bit faster than the others.

* * *

The classroom was as dark as a chapel in the late afternoon sun. Scissor and paste creations hung tapped in the window, filtering what little sunlight there was through multicolored rice paper like stained glass. It reflected on the floor, on the dizzying snowfall of dust particles. Inside it was quiet, but the kind of quiet that existed only by comparison; distantly one could hear the voices of children playing in the yard outside, the twitter of birds, a gust of wind that rattled the half-open windows.

Udon hesitated just inside the doorway, but before his better judgment could master him, he felt a firm tug on his sleeve.

"Come _on_," Konohamaru hissed.

The two boys made their way to the cabinets built in the wall, moving with credible stealth for their level of training. Shuffling, grunting, and clamoring to reach the highest shelf. Then finally the coveted papers were in Konohamaru's hands. Neat symbols spelled out his triumph – the infamous exam papers.

Udon, meanwhile, was beginning to tremble under his friend's weight. Of the two of them he was actually smaller and probably should have been the one standing on Konohamaru's shoulders. However, their world was still bound by all sorts of fanciful rules, and one of those clearly stated that, as their appointed leader, Konohamaru was obliged to take the primary role in all endeavors. It was just the way of things.

Regardless, Udon's voice was strained when he whispered, "Konohamaru. Did you get them?

The other child beamed broadly, waving their bounty so that the whole scaffold wobbled.

"Urp."

With effort, Udon managed to spread his feet further, recapturing his tentative balance. Konohamaru made a clumsy descent, knocking loose Udon's glasses with the heel of one sandal. When both boys had their feet on the ground, Konohamaru showed Udon the papers and they shared a triumphant smile.

"I can't wait to tell Moegi!" Udon said happily, thinking of how the little girl would flush rosy and clasp her hands with pleasure.

Hearing the tone in his friend's voice, Konohamaru hastily pushed the rolled papers into his belt and then propped both fists on his hips. "Udon, I thought we decided about Moegi."

The bespectacled boy's face fell, but he nodded hesitantly. They had decided that since Moegi was a member of the team, she couldn't also be a girl. To Konohamaru this still made perfect sense, but Udon was beginning to have doubts. He'd been meaning to talk about it with Sensei, but lately every time he'd seen the man they were either in class or he was running away to escape punishment.

He gulped a little, thinking about punishment.

"Are you sure this is such a good idea?" He'd asked before, but suddenly, crouching guiltily in the corner of the empty classroom, he was beginning to feel a completely new level of apprehension. Stealing exam papers wasn't like making chalkboard erasers explode.

"Don't be such a sissy civilian," Konohamaru castigated his teammate. "Ninja are _supposed_ to be sneaky."

That was true. Udon rubbed at his nose. "But Iruka-sensei says being ninja's our job, not the kind of people we are. He said we're supposed to be honest."

Konohamaru made a rebellious face, but Udon knew how much he respected Iruka-sensei. Clearly, he was struggling to decide between doing what he wanted and risking the disapproval of a trusted mentor. Finally, though, desire seemed to win out. "Meh," he said, flapping his arms as though to dismiss his troubled feelings. "What does _he_ know, anyway?"

"For one thing, how much trouble you're about to be in."

The voice came to them from above, deep as doom and as unequivocal. A powerful jolt ran through the boys, yet even as their blood raced, they knew exactly who had caught them.

Iruka-sensei loomed, his face hard. He frowned, flashing eyes that weren't quite angry but were deeply filled with something else – disappointment, maybe. Moegi lay captured under the weight of his hand, looking tearful, and all three students' faces pinched under the anticipated weight of reprimand.

"Really, you three. You'd be thieves and cheaters?"

Udon and Moegi both bowed their heads in shame, but not Konohamaru. Fists clutched, he demanded, "Why shouldn't we? It's what ninja's do! I bet _you've_ stolen stuff before."

The heads of his companions snapped around to their teacher, waiting for his response to such an accusation – to an accusation that was likely _true_. Yet Iruka didn't yell or get upset. Instead, he gazed at them steadily.

"Why do you think you're in this academy?" he asked.

It was an odd question, but Konohamaru answered anyway. "To learn to be a ninja."

"Wrong," Iruka-sensei said. "_Shinobi_ is a title; you'll be granted it when you reach a certain level of skill, whether you learn those skills in this building or not. You're in the academy to learn to be a person."

"What's the difference?"

"You tell me," Sensei requested.

Udon – who had taken this oft-repeated lesson deeply to heart – was able to respond with Sensei's words exactly: "People're who we are. Ninja is what we do."

Iruka-sensei nodded, and the bespectacled boy was certain there was a glint of pride at the edge of his reproachful eyes. He turned to Konohamaru, who was still frowning with his arms crossed. "If a shinobi is a thief than he is also a murderer. And if that were true, what would stop us from looting a battlefield or breaking into someone's home? What would stop you from using threat of force to rule over people? That would make you a bandit and a terrorist, not a ninja."

"Ninja's do that stuff," Konohamaru said weakly.

Udon was surprised when Sensei didn't disagree with Konohamaru, but maybe he shouldn't have been. Iruka-sensei always told them the truth, even with difficult things.

"You're right, of course," Sensei said instead. "But I know that you know the difference, Konohamaru. You know the difference between acts directed against an enemy and being a bully."

The young man – powerful progeny, future leader, but for now irascible prankster, _little boy_ – ducked his head. In a low, conflicted voice, he muttered, "The difference is hard."

Iruka nodded. "It is. Picking out the difference between right and wrong is tough for anybody, but maybe especially for shinobi. However, it's what you're here for. I'm trying to get you ready to make those kinds of choices on your own."

Moegi tugged on his sleeve. "But…you always help us, Sensei."

Iruka looked at the little girl. He said, "You're not going to be my students for much longer. You'll be Konoha shinobi. Then you'll have to decide what to do with your title. I can't always fix things for you."

That was a daunting thought. Iruka-sensei had long been their breaker between childhood and the churning ocean of adulthood. What would they do without him?

He delivered another lesson now, measured with careful words: "Being a shinobi and being a person are both parts of who you are, and so, of course, they affect each other. But for you and me, it's important to think about what happens when we put down our weapons. It's a questions that all shinobi have to ask themselves – what can you live with? Can you live with yourself?"

The pause left the children standing there, eyes averted as they considered. There was no time to measure out a response, however, for Iruka-sensei chose to break the heavy moment, waving them off with his hands.

"Now go, all of you. I need to rewrite your exam while I think of something truly awful for your punishment. Something back-breaking, humiliating, or both." His expression seemed to indicate that this was a task that required great concentration, which would be broken by their presence.

Moegi gave a low groan at the mention of their imminent penance, but both boys seemed to realize they were getting off easy and should take advantage of the opportunity to disappear. With one lingering look at his teacher, Konohamaru led them towards the exit.

Udon paused at the threshold. There was one more question that he wanted to ask. He fidgeted in the doorway, rubbing a circle in the wood with his finger as he summoned his nerve. Finally, he blurted, "Are you a murderer, Iruka-sensei?"

Quiet. He could barely see his sensei's face in the grey darkness; it was almost night, now. Finally, Iruka said, "I have been."

The young man didn't know why it made his stomach cringe and curl inside him to hear that. He was a _ninja_.

A scrapping sound as Iruka-sensei moved around the desks and approached. He placed a hand on Udon's shoulder and said, "It's my hope that you won't have to make all of my mistakes, Udon."

Udon didn't know why, but something about the weight of that familiar hand – a hand that he had known ever since he was too small to strap on his own sandals – made him slowly relax. He had known Sensei too long to doubt him.

Iruka offered him a private smile. "You're growing up a little faster than the others, aren't you? Try to keep them out of trouble if you can. They'll need you."

A heavy burden when Konohamaru was your so-called leader.

Iruka-sensei chuckled at his crumpled face and winked. "No one ever said our job was easy."

Udon wondered if he meant taking care of his friends, or being a ninja. Or both.

* * *

Author's Note: I'm afraid there may be some gross typos in this chapter, which received a major overhaul and was rather hastily edited. If you noticed anything too distracting, please feel free to let me know. Raise of hands for Udon fans? Just me. Okay...


	24. The Box Outside

**24. The Box Outside**

Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Nara Shikaku, Nara Shikamaru

Summary: Nara Shikaku gets a rare glimpse into the future of his son's formative influences, and learns to be wary of the 'rules' of the game.

* * *

Nara Shikaku stood before the figure of his Lord, wondering about the nature of his summons to this office. The Sandaime had his hands folded before him on the desk, his crow-lined face blank except for the faintest, most whimsical grin. He nodded. "Shikaku, my friend. Thank you for coming so quickly."

The clan leader did not bother to say that, when summoned by the Hokage, there was little recourse except for a speedy presentation of one's person. Instead, he responded by saying, "As you requested, Lord Hokage. What can I do for you this day?"

"Actually," the old man said, straightening in his chair so that his eyes could more fully encompass the room. "It isn't me who needs your assistance, but another."

He gestured to the corner, prompting the room's only other occupant to step forward – with heavy reluctance, it seemed, from the hesitating footfall. The Sandaime introduced him.

"This is Umino Iruka. I would like you to show him how to prepare and administer a through selection of antidotes and supplements. Oh, nothing too provincial," his leader reassured when he caught Shikaku's sharp look. "I leave _that_ to your discretion. All I ask is that you give him a solid grounding."

Why? It would have been a fair question, if Shikaku had been willing to ask. He cast a lingering gaze over the young man in question, measuring what he saw and finding little explanation _there_. He was young and small yet, an adolescent who hadn't grown into his antlers. Brown and wide-eyed, like a doe. A little underfed. Marked, though not disfigured. He was fidgeting slightly, knuckles tight at his side. Nervous. Shikaku could sense his unease like a musk.

All in all, not a too terribly impressive an animal.

He turned back to his Lord, who was watching him with interest. Obviously, his evaluation had not gone unnoticed. Inwardly, Shikaku felt a curl of exasperation. Of course, the Sandaime never did anything without a reason, and he was known for his favorites.

"Very well." Shikaku bowed appropriately low, ducking his head in acquiescence and accepting the nod of dismissal. As he turned, he hitched a brow at the waiting youth. He commanded, "Come on then."

Near inaudible steps trailed him out into the open sky. It was nearing the end of the day, and the dusk lights had begun to come out, pink and orange and a deeper, indescribable blue. Just outside the tower, under the fluttering banners, the older man paused. He braced his hands against his hips.

"I can tell from the way you stand that you'd rather be somewhere else," he began without prelude. He sensed the stiffening posture behind his back, and turned to face his assignment more fully. "For my part, I have no interest in holding the hand of some impatient young buck trying to swallow the expertise of generations in a few sessions. Especially not ones who look like a dimwitted fawn."

The boy pressed his lips together, but didn't answer. Shikaku was surprised. The face on this one was expressive, and he could see the traces of a strong temper in it. But apparently the boy had managed some wisdom in his short life – some sense of place and timing – because he held his tongue. It was somewhat impressive.

Shikaku nodded approvingly. "It's troublesome, but I suppose we must both do as we're bidden. And if it must be done, then wasting time will do neither of us any good. You can come back with me to my home and we'll begin tonight. That is," he asked with a hard look, "Unless you have someone you need to inform of your whereabouts first."

A barely perceptible lowering of the boy's chin. He shook his head.

The clansman didn't inquire further. Instead, he set a demanding pace down the path that lead outside the wall; the land holdings of his family were expansive, and a fair distance from the village center.

At first, they didn't speak as they made their way through the gates and along the forest's outlying boundary. It was fall and a steady crackle of dry leaf-litter accompanied the silence of a wood – the thousand ticks and breaking sounds that together equaled nothing. Shikaku took this time to further evaluate the being he was about to bring into his home and entrust with powerful knowledge.

The boy had a long stride, with a little more sway in it then the elder was used to seeing. His posture told of at least journeyman training and some field experience; it was as economical as it should be, and more self-aware than most his age. The tiniest limp was the only noticeable flaw other than a slightly heavy step. It wasn't a gait that told of anything particularly special, but Shikaku did not let that affect his judgment.

He broke cleanly through their assumed quiet, like putting his heel down on a twig. "So, what interest does the Hokage have in you?"

The young man looked up. "What do you mean?"

Shikaku made a sound in his throat, like a laugh but dryer. "You know, as I do, that the Sandaime does not idly partition one out from his herd. So what are you? A promising warrior? A clever tactician?"

"Iruka."

The answer jarred the clan leader. He cast a harsh look at his follower. "What?"

"My name. It's Iruka. And I am not a deer," Iruka said, his brow a stubborn arch.

Had he been a more ebullient man, Shikaku might actually have laughed. As it was, he didn't bother to cover the rare quirk of amusement that passed swiftly over his features. It seemed only fair; an answer as surprising as that deserved a response. "You _do_ know who I am," he ventured.

Iruka nodded. "Yes. You're Nara Shikaku, the leader of the Nara Clan. I studied the history of your family in the classroom. Specialization: medicine. The varieties made from the deer you tend are supposed to be remarkable. And staunchly secret."

"True," the clansman answered, verifying these most basic of facts. "Not that you'll be learning _them_, you understand. I'll teach you what the Sandaime asked: basic footing. Enough to keep yourself alive in almost any circumstances short of active combat." His own words ignited a flash of insight in him, and his narrowed eyes became shrewd. "You haven't answered my original question."

Iruka had fallen into an easier stride, as though he had grown more comfortable now that the barrier of conversation had been broken. It was with greater composure that he responded. "Oh. It isn't what you're thinking. I want to be an academy teacher. I work there as an aide now, with the entry level classes."

An academy teacher. Shikaku resisted the urge to put his fingers through the crown of his stiff hair in confusion. He could think of no reason for a grade school teacher to need what he could teach. Yet he could sense Iruka's sincerity. It was in the shine of his eyes as his mind obviously went to his students.

There wasn't time for further interrogation, however, because within the next few paces they cleared the wood. Spreading out from the trees, roots roamed a great pasture, like a sheet of grass as far as the unaided eye could see. Shikaku breathed in the scent of the long-reed – that distinct spice of open field and earth. Just there, at the head of the lolling horizon, he could see his family's compound.

Iruka had taken up root at the edge of the prairie, his dark eyes fixated on a clump of distant, moving blotches. Shikaku shielded his eyes. "Ah, that's Te-RuHo's herd," he identified after a moment. "I can see that showy tail of his, the proud bastard. Very temperamental, that one. You can be glad that they're so far away."

"I wish they were closer." He spoke so softly that Shikaku barely heard Iruka's whisper. The boy still hadn't taken his eyes off of them, and it made the Shikaku feel another unexpected jolt of approval. Reverence and awe of the _Sika_ was an appropriate emotion.

Nonetheless, he took Iruka by them arm. "Come on. I don't plan to be late for supper. Too many unanticipated events in one day makes a man hungry."

* * *

Supper was a comfortably long affair, with members of his family gathered around a long table while the news of the day was dished out alongside healthy portions of streaming vegetables and plates of rice. Seasoning was another secret of the Nara legacy, and so the heady smell over the table was a glory to its makers. Shikaku ate steadily amidst the subdued chatter, keeping an eye on his tagalong as he did so.

Iruka had been seated further down the table, lower than the prominent house leaders, but in a relative position off honor considering his status as their guest. Somehow, this had managed to place him very near Shikaku's own son – young Shikamaru, who had just turned four last season. He could see the little boy surreptitiously eyeing the stranger in between bites of cabbage, his flat brown eyes drifting there from time to time.

Shikaku frowned.

He would never admit it to anyone, not even to his own wife, but he was concerned for his boy. A child his age should show some interest, some curiosity, but Shikamaru seemed perpetually bored. If allowed, he would sit out in the fields all day, staring into nowhere so far as anyone could tell. So far, Shikaku had not been able to cajole him to participate in even the simplest lessons or games, and it was beginning to worry him.

Most children entering the academy knew how to read, but Shikamaru rarely even spoke. Most knew the most basic shinobi arts, but when Shikaku tried to push the boy, he would sink into the deepest, most unhappy torpor and flatly refuse to even look at his father.

Shikaku was out of his depth. The clan leader only hoped that this mood would pass before the boy reached the academy. He was convinced his son was smart, even brilliant. However, if he refused to actively engage with the world, there was little hope for his future as a ninja.

The meal broke up as goodnights were said and separate branches split into their own homes. Some had a distance to walk, their cottages being located over the big countryside. As was his duty, Shikaku waited to see them off before going to look for Iruka.

The young man had been ushered into the common room where his family spent much of their free time. Shikamaru was there too, crouched on the rug before the hearth, examining a few fibers with a fingernail. His bland look rose only momentarily when the older man entered the room. The father fought back a sigh.

"If you'll wait here, I'll go and gather what we need to cover the preliminary information," he spoke to his new student. Receiving confirmation, he left to retrieve the volumes that were on his mind; there was much that would have to be covered on paper before he was prepared to trust Iruka with the actual powders and chemicals. Too much of it was dangerous, too much of it required the most precise calculation and care. No, they would start with theory.

He was just rounding the corner of the threshold that lead back into the main room, when he was stopped by a voice.

"Have you got them tight together now? Let me see. Ah, very good." Iruka's calm tenor was instantly recognizable, though there was a new quality too; a kind of warmth, a golden heart-sound.

Shikaku took a careful step toward the beam of the door, peering around it so he could see what was taking place.

To his astonishment, Shikamaru was standing before their guest, his little features pressed into an expression of the keenest concentration. Before him, he held out his hands, the tips of his two index fingers pressed firmly together.

"That's right," Iruka told him, testing his hold with a few light tugs, praising him when they didn't move apart. "You hold them just like that, okay?"

The child nodded seriously.

Iruka moved his own hand, bringing his thumb and index finger together in a strong 'O' – exactly around Shikamaru's own connected digits. "See how your fingers are trapped?" the young man asked, allowing the child to attempt an escape. The little boy bounced his fingers all around the inside of the ring, but without disconnecting them, he could not get free. Iruka smiled. "Ah, I've caught you. You're a prisoner of the mind."

'_The mind?'_ Shikaku could actually see the query in his son's face, the question mark that squished up his brow and made him frown hard.

Iruka gave him instructions: "To win the game, you have to escape the circle. There aren't any rules. Do you think you can do it, Shikamaru? This is a puzzle game, so think carefully."

The boy did. He tugged gently in one direction, then pulled, testing another. He moved his hands backward and forward. Finally, he was biting his lip, a befuddled look on his face. So long as he kept the tips of his fingers together, he couldn't get free.

"Are you ready to know the answer?" Iruka asked after an a moment of time had passed. He waited until his captive audience nodded before pressing his own fingers together, tip upon tip. "Go ahead, make a loop."

Shikamaru made his own little circle prison. Then he looked up at Iruka wonderingly, waiting to see how the impossible situation would be defeated, if it could be at all.

Iruka smiled, and then pulled his fingers apart. As soon they ceased to be connected, he escaped the circle.

"I didn't say you couldn't pull apart your fingers," he pointed out gently, remarking upon the child's boggled expression. "That was a limitation you imposed upon yourself. Sometimes to find the answer, we have to imagine a solution that doesn't fit with what believe is true, do you understand, Shikamaru?"

Shikaku chose that moment to reenter the room, the volumes and handful of scrolls carefully secured beneath his arm. Both young people looked up upon his entrance, and to the father's tremendous astonishment, he witnessed his son light up.

"Papa!" Shikamaru stumbled over his feet, so eager was his approach. Gesturing imperiously, he called his patron to his knees so he could face the man at eye level. "Father, look," he said, and his serious young voice was more alert than Shikaku could recall in recent memory. He pulled his father's fingers together, and trapped them in the loop of his much smaller ring. "You can't get out. Try, Father."

Entranced, the clan leader did, tugging to get loose just as his son had done, all while his true attention was transfixed on the grin – the pleased, satisfied, mischievous _grin – _drawing up his child's face.

"Do you give up?" Shikamaru asked. "Look, you just take them apart." He smiled up at his father, bestowing wisely, "There aren't any rules. You were a prisoner of the mind."

Shikaku found he couldn't speak; something was clogging the passageway between his throat and his lungs. He pressed his broad hand roughly over his son's forehead. "You're right," he told the boy proudly. "I was."

"He has a strong mind." The voice belonged to Iruka, who had stood respectfully when his elder entered. He stepped up behind them now, the eager boy distracted by his fingers, and the relieved, happy father seeing the light off his son where he had been afraid to find only a dim shadow. "You'll have your work cut out for you, Nara-san, to keep him challenged enough so that he doesn't lose interest."

It sounded so simple coming out of that young man's mouth. Puzzles and word games. Thinking outside of the box. So simple, like the trap that he and his son had just tried to escape.

Nara Shikaku looked at the little hart before him with a different mind, one that wasn't a prisoner. What he saw was a guide who had taught a life-altering lesson to a child and a clan leader in the space of the same breath. He saw a person who had managed to spark the intellect of a immature awareness, entangled in a wandering wood. And he thought, to do all that even now, one day Iruka would be a truly great teacher.

He shifted the books beneath his arm, books filled with the knowledge that his family had gathered from time immemorial. Moments ago he had chafed, feeling bound by his order to instruct one he did not find worthy. That feeling had passed now. He thought he had a glimmer in his mind about what the Sandaime knew about Umino Iruka that Shikaku himself had not.

And he felt proud, suddenly, of being able to share something with one who would some day shape the future warriors of Konoha. Looking down into the eyes of his child, blinking with new insight, he thought – yes, a few passages on medicine seemed poor compensation for the privilege of _this_, his son, awake and breathing in a world that had just taken on a whole new aspect and a new set of rules…or, perhaps, no rules at all.

Shikaku's lips stretched upward, a rare, unabashed expression on his dark, serious face. One hand on his son's forehead and the other curled around his load, he ducked his chin and grinned. "Come on then, Iruka," he said, surprising the young man by using his name for the first time. "We have our work cut out for us."

* * *

Author's Note: Iruka's relationship with the parents of his students is interesting to me. He really did have quite a class when you think about it. Imagining the parent-teacher conferences makes me wonder how it is that Iruka survived long enough to see them graduate. That would make a good story, right? A Hyuuga-Umino Parent-Teacher conference?


	25. Parent-Teacher Conference

**25. Parent-Teacher Conference**

Character(s): Iruka-sensei; Hyuuga Hiashi & Hanabi  
Summary: Hanabi knows that, to a ninja, a lie can be as potent a weapon as a shuriken. But she needs a lesson in friendly fire.

* * *

The parchment crinkled in his hand as Iruka squinted down at it. Behind him, the final stage of sundown progressed through the sky, and the written characters had become indistinct in the cascading dim. Not that he needed to read them again, and the hot irritation that had been with him since he received the summons stirred around in his belly.

The message was brief, stiffly formal, and permeated with the underlining hostility that Iruka had come to expect from this particular family. It read:

_Umino Iruka,_

_Your presence is hereby requested and required at the Hyuuga Main House for an audience with clan leader, Hyuuga Hiashi, and his advisors at the evening bell. Failure to report for this meeting will have consequences._

On this final portentous note, the message ended. There was no gracious wording, no information about the nature of the 'audience' – not even a signature, although the morose expression on little Hanabi's face when she pushed it onto the battle-scarred surface of his desk left him with no uncertainty. He had been called to a parent-teacher conference. Or perhaps to an inquisition.

It was the reason he was standing here now, just outside the black gates of the Hyuuga compound, even as the last rays of sun warmed his back and warped shadow around his eyes. The faint peals of the evening bell were just fading, and Iruka grimaced.

He knew the timing of this meeting was a deliberate means of unnerving him. It ensured that he would be caught outside the village gates after dark, unable to return to Konoha proper until they reopened in the morning. Iruka's eyebrows stitched together stubbornly; he refused to be intimidated by such a childish tactic.

He fully expected to be kept waiting for some time, so it surprised him when the gates opened almost instantly at his back. A dark shape loomed out of the passage. The man did not waste words: "Umino Iruka?"

The chuunin itched to say, _'As requested and required,'_ but it was early yet in the evening to be antagonizing his hosts. Anyway, sarcasm was wasted on the Hyuuga. Therefore, it was with careful urbanity that Iruka bowed and obediently followed.

The entrance lead into a courtyard predominated by a manor whose elegantly curling eves he could only just make out. Under the full light of day, it would be a beautiful estate – immaculately tended and sun-bright – but in the twilight it was cold: a smoky, black-on-black image of a place one didn't walk out of easily.

It was deep into the interior of this grand manor that Iruka was led. The sound of his footsteps whispered on lacquered panels and his shadow stretched long against the walls. The teacher could see the virtues of his hosts in every feature of the house: the penchant for a Spartan splendor, for clean lines, for perfection.

_Perfection._ Iruka scrunched his nose as the word crossed his mind. Yes, that was why he was here.

Their final destination was the main hall. It blazed with heat. Firelight outlined the waiting council like jet, all of them tall and grim as though made from stone. One particularly piercing, transcendental gaze stood out among them – it bore into the teacher like serrated hooks.

Iruka braced himself. And so his 'audience' began.

Forcing himself to show all appropriate decorum, Iruka braced his arms and bowed. The sharp wariness in his eyes undoubtedly belied the courteous manner, but it was nonetheless with perfect politeness that he acknowledged, "My Lord Hyuuga."

The gathering didn't respond immediately, an indignity that Hiashi undoubtedly deemed befitting Iruka's station as a lowly teacher of children. In all the times they had met before (a not insignificant number, as Iruka had been a figure in both of his daughters' educations), the tall clan leader had shown his contempt very clearly. He did not conceal it as he came forward now, either.

"I will not deign to say that your presence is welcome in my home," he began, frowning in a way that only added to the general implacability of his stern mouth. "In fact, I cannot tell you how much the necessity of this meeting nauseates me."

Iruka had a mind to tell the clan leader that he was hardly responsible for the man's indigestion, but some surviving fleck of self-preservation reigned him and he snapped down on the retort before it made it past his teeth.

His restraint didn't seem to impress the clan leader, who turned with a flourish that was just a touch dramatic in so taciturn a family, and – wryly – Iruka wondered how it was that he had managed to serve during the reign of the single Hyuuga hot-head.

Hiashi pressed his hands onto the surface of the broad table at the center of the room. "My daughter brought home her latest exam score yesterday. She says you failed her deliberately, to sabotage her application for early graduation."

The chuunin's eyes stretched at Hanabi's explanation of her failed grade. The test had been a practicum on trajectories, and he knew very well why the littlest Hyuuga had done poorly; weapon handling was not one of her many gifts, and she disliked the rigors of classroom theory. Recently, he'd been working with her on application, and she had shown improvement, but on the exam day she had sullenly refused to participate. Secretly, Iruka suspected that she was embarrassed by her clumsiness and feared being seen as incompetent by her peers. It sometimes happened when children were motivated by approval above all else; he had seen it before.

The teacher focused on the father before him, not wondering that Hanabi had preferred a clever lie to an uncomfortable truth. And it was clever indeed; Iruka's political views were quite well known – he and Hiashi had clashed over them in the past.

He wondered what he could possibly say, short of exposing his student. Facts were the safest, and so he began with those: "When I evaluate my students, it's on their performance and no other consideration." An edge of firmness leaked into his voice. "I would not falsify them."

It seemed impossibly that eyes so white could burn, and yet Hiashi managed. He accused, "And yet you do not want her to be accelerated. You have stood in the way of her advancement at every step!"

Iruka didn't bother to deny it. "My position on early graduation is based on years of experience teaching academy-level students, Hyuuga-san." _And personal experience_, he added silently. There was not a shinobi in the village over twenty-years-old who had not been a child-soldier. "But that has nothing to do with Hanabi's test score. She has issues."

"'Issues'?" the man growled, "Hanabi has no _'issues'_." In a different parent, his outrage might have been touching, but to Iruka, Hiashi sounded as though he was speaking of a flaw in a product he had produced. It made the teacher angry for her, just as he had once been angry for poor, desolate Hinata.

"Hanabi is, in many ways, an exceptional shinobi." Iruka spoke to the man and his panel of kin, all of whom were staring at him fixedly, with eyes like bands of light. "Her charka control is easily the best in her class, and quite advanced for her age. She shows good sense of space and her own body. As you know, she's developing the skills of her clan very rapidly. But – " He paused briefly, pressing on even as he felt the room tense. "But, she is sometimes a poor student, temperamental, and impatient with bookwork outside of her favorite subjects. Her accuracy with advanced level projectiles is still poor, and her mistakes frustrate her so much that she often looses her temper and makes elementary mistakes."

He took a breath. When he continued, it was more quietly, less like a report. "Of course, Hyuuga-san, these small shortcomings are very typical for a child her age."

It was the wrong thing to say. Hyuuga Hiashi did not want to hear his child being described with a word so offensive as "typical". Veins creased his temples, and he frothed, "Hanabi is anything but typical; she was born to be a soldier!"

But if telling the clan leader that his daughter was average had been an error in Iruka's judgment, then the statement about soldiers was a mistake on the part of Hiashi's. Already brittle with barely contained fury, Iruka snapped, "She was born to be a human being."

He wanted to add,_ 'You pompous, warmongering ass'_, but didn't.

"And she has weaknesses, just like us all. It is my job to make sure she doesn't die of them in the field, and I will do that, no matter what you or anyone else thinks."

"What do _you_ know of the field?" The clan leader's voice had risen, and he ranged nearer. Iruka could feel the man's charka pressing against his own, threatening and close. It hissed with Hiashi, "You, a chuunin thought so hopeless to any effective purpose that they put you in a school. You, who will never gain rank, never bleed from more than a paper cut for your village."

Iruka bristled. "I make no claim to genius, and it's true that I may never advance. But even if I have no special sight, then at least I'm not blind to the destruction I'm reeking on my own children! Your daughter would do anything for you." He spat, "Except tell you the truth. And if you keep pushing her, she is going to believe that you care more about her rank than you do about her life." Completely beside himself with rage, he demanded, "Are you so willing to get your children killed?"

Iruka didn't even see Hiashi's lunge. Only after the hands had closed on either side of his jugular did his senses return to him. Nerves jumped under the pads of the assailing thumbs, and he was only too aware that the gentlest pressure could leave him flickering like a dying fire, his charka snuffed. Still, he did not move. Instead, he trained all the fire he possessed into his eyes, challenging the glowering shafts of wrath with a conviction that surpassed even his fear.

For a long moment, no one moved.

Then Iruka saw the other men from the periphery of his frozen eyes. They had tensed, shifting forward the barest step – the Hyuuga equivalent of shouting across a room. Their call to halt had summoned Hiashi back to his senses, and, slowly, he withdrew his hands from Iruka's neck.

He moved away then, and it seemed as though his shoulders sloped as he turned his back. Fingers lifted to press against his temples, and Iruka could suddenly see only weariness there. The anger had dried up like a dewpond, and his words, when he spoke, no longer sounded like an insult or a threat. Instead, it was as though he was warning Iruka, voice heavy with premonition. "_You_. You're going to break yourself, Sensei, on the rocks of greater men's wrath."

Iruka answered with his own metaphor. "Waves may break on the rocks, but afterward they just return to the sea." He thought of his children, and the legacy he was leaving behind. "They are a never ending procession. And if it's up to me, you will be beset by _my _waves for all times."

There might have been something like amazement in the eyes of the Hyuuga who had summoned him, but it was hard to say; their translucent eyes were impossible to read. For a while, Iruka wondered if he had pushed too far. But Hiashi surprised him.

"I do not want to see my children dead," he muttered, almost too quietly to be heard. Then he said, "I will be speaking to the Hokage about this."

Iruka held onto that bitter note in Hiashi's voice as he was escorted out, hoping that some truth had prevailed here, even if their meeting had been founded on a falsehood.

* * *

It took considerable constraint for Iruka to wait until he was alone in the corridor to press his hands to his neck. A phantom pressure remained there, tingling over the charka pathways, and he smiled grimly, imagining how close to death he had been this time. And his colleagues claimed there was no danger in being an academy teacher! Clearly, they had never tried dealing a pack of baby shinobi, and their parents.

His contemplation was interrupted by a soft shuffle, so slight that it was almost indistinguishable from the faint, natural sounds of a quiet house. The teacher let his head fall just slightly to the left, observing a long shadow. "Well," he said, and it was a thoughtful sound, somewhat muted in the big hall. "Did things go as you expected, then, Hanabi?"

The little girl stepped out unwillingly, and ducked her milky eyes, ashamed.

The man nodded, half to himself. He couldn't fully bury his disappointed. "It was a lie that you told," he pointed out. "You know why you failed that exam."

She didn't deny it. But her lower lip, which she had been worrying, pouted just a bit. "Subterfuge is a shinobi's tool. You told us that in class."

It shouldn't have wrenched his heart so much to hear his own words spoken back to him in such a context; if this was how she interpreted his lesson, he had truly failed her. He congratulated her coolly. "In that case, I suppose you achieved your objective. Your tactic was a success."

Her stricken face was hard to walk away from, but he did it anyway, hoping…

"_Sensei!"_

The young, high voice trailed him, and when she caught up, he could tell that she was deeply conflicted; it was written in every line of her small, round face. "I know that lying is part of the ninja way." Then her fists clinched, and she stammered, "B-but we're allies, aren't we, Sensei."

It was like seeing a shaft of sunlight after a fog; Iruka's smile broke out immediately. "That's right, Hanabi," he said gently, knelling beside her and placing his hand on her shoulder. "You shouldn't lie to endanger your allies. That's a good way to think about it."

His response triggered a knowing look, as though Hanabi realized the teaching moment that had passed between them. Iruka was proud of her for that too; she truly was a sharp little girl.

Afterwards, Hanabi walked with him to the compound gate, frowning when she realized that he would have no where to go once he left. "It's alright, Hanabi," he assured her. "I've stayed overnight in the forest before."

The child fidgeted, and for a moment she looked just exactly her own age – shy and a little awkward and ten-years-old. "You could stay in my room," she offered, as though she were asking a friend for a sleepover. The teacher felt a rush of fondness for her, knowing as they both did just how her father would feel about that.

He turned her down gently. "I think I'm in enough trouble already, even without overstaying my welcome." He sighed dramatically. "After all, now I have to survive a meeting with both your father _and_ the Godaime."

Hanabi squished her nose up, as though imaging just how that might go. In a serious tone, she suggested, "You could try just standing there and letting them yell at you until it's over."

The advice made the teacher just a little sad, knowing that it certainly came from hard experience. He asked, "Do you find that works?"

In response, Hanabi offered him the littlest, tiniest smile. "No," she told him, "but at least they won't give you a spanking afterward."

Iruka choked on his laughter, stunned as he was by its sudden provocation. A Hyuuga with a sense of humor, he thought, whipping his eyes. Well, wonders never ceased. "I will seriously consider your advice, Hanabi," he promised her.

She nodded gravely, and a moment passed. Then, impulsively, she reached for his hand. The smaller fingers squeezed his own, tightly in the dark. For a Hyuuga, it was the equivalent of a full-body hug, and Iruka felt a plug in his throat. Firmly, he returned her grip.

It was one of those moments that made everything worth it, up to and including the promise of an early death.


	26. Self-Preservation

**26. Self-Preservation**

Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Ibiki

Summary: In which Iruka discovers another possible reason why the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu is forbidden.

* * *

Iruka was convinced that his missions were dictated by a malignant sense of fate.

It wasn't a matter of opportunity. In fact, the opposite was more the truth – on average, Iruka ran fewer, not more missions than other shinobi. Yet in defiance of common sense, probability, and any notion of justice in the world, _his_ missions seemed to have an unusually high potential for turning irrevocably sour.

He contemplated this as he dashed madly headlong through a thicket, just out of sight of nearly a dozen enemies ranging ever nearer in close pursuit. Reedy stalks whistled as he passed, stinging his face and exposed arms. The moist, boggy ground sucked at his sandals.

"Ibiki's going to have my ass for this," Iruka's thoughts scrabbled, erratic and slightly hysterical as he pushed hard against his thresholds. If he survived, he decided, he would be so severely rebuked that it would take him a week to recover. And he might even deserve it after this complete fiasco.

It had been a simple mission; low-profile infiltration – fact gathering of the type that any shinobi could have accomplished. Except that his experience with children should have given him an edge; the minister whose house he'd entered was the father of a six-year-old daughter.

It was in thwarting her assassination that Iruka had blown his cover.

'_And isn't that just like you,'_ the chuunin thought with a pang of self-recrimination. Rescuing the child of an enemy of Konoha was definitely _not_ a part of his mission. _'But, oh well,'_ he thought nonsensically, feeling his muscles burn. At the moment, he had more immediate concerns.

As though by demonstration, a slice of cold pain suddenly bisected his side – steely epistle of his pursuing entourage. Instinctively, he drew up his hands, ignoring the sudden sensation of hot, sticky weeping that trailed down his thigh. His fingers twisted like origami figures – _Tiger, Boar, Ox_ – even as his lips moved automatically over the words of separation.

And then he parted, flesh and soul.

The first time he had performed this jutsu, it had been disorienting, like suddenly feeling the thud of a dozen hearts in one chest, or seeing the world through compound eyes. Then the sensation assimilated, leaving only a slightly hollow feeling to remind him that there were parts of himself _elsewhere_.

The smoke cleared, revealing eight separate Iruka – seven doppelgangers – which split to the wind, each a replica so complete that the enemy would never be able to tell them apart. Iruka took the opportunity that they provided, renewing his efforts to put distance between himself and his pursuers. There were only four, and he could feel their slight hesitation, the infinitesimal pause as they chose their path or replicated their own doubles.

A smirk trembled at the edges of Iruka's mouth as he thought of it – _his_ were no usual doppelgangers, and mere shadows would not be able to disrupt them. In fact, he was just daring to think that he might have the opportunity to be punished for his sentimentality once more, when suddenly the earth reached up and snatched him.

He felt the abrading edge of the partially submerged root even as his ankle caught and _twisted_ with an audible crunch. Staggering, he was unable to dampen the force behind his forward momentum, and went down hard in a half-roll that was made awkward by the sticky muck clinging to his legs. It stuck to him like glue, disrupting his practiced fall, and instead of taking the stunning blow against his shoulder, he came down hard on his neck and skull, directly onto the edge of an exposed rock.

Lights exploded before his vision, sense momentarily fled. _Fate,'_ he thought woefully. _'The only solid piece of terrain in the entire area, and I manage to strike it with my head.'_

The hands of the earth sucked at him, wrapping slimy fingers around his appendages as he forced himself upright. His temples were throbbing, and there was blood in his ear, seeping over his shoulder, trailing down his thigh. Disoriented, he responded drunkenly to the movement on the edge of his vision. The air whistled with it, and his mind froze, recognizing the sound even as he turned, far too slowly.

The net filled up his whole vision, glistening as the light caught it, but otherwise invisible. It would ensconce him like a web of razor blades, slicing through his skin to get caught in the deeper levels of his tissue – a beautiful, gossamer cage of hair-thin, blood-bringing wire.

He had time to think, _'This is it,'_ and imagine his own death…

And then he was slammed into from the right side, and went down heavily under the weight of another body.

* * *

Iruka awoke to a strange, dissociated feeling. Limber fingers were feeling carefully around his skull, as though assessing it for fractures. He winced when the unknown hands probed the tender spot where he had struck the rock, a soft hissing noise passing through his chapped lips. He licked at them with his swollen tongue, feeling their roughness.

The hands absented themselves, and when they returned Iruka felt cool wetness against his mouth. He sucked at it like a newborn, his hand coming up to draw the source of water nearer. The taste was bitter, and there was a strong muddy flavor, but it was still water and his body cried for it.

'_How long have I been unconscious?' _It was the first though that muddled itself out.

When his thirst had exhausted the meager offering, Iruka's head fell back and he panted. A milky tear of sweat made a lazy trail down his temple. It was only when that same unknown hand returned that the disorder of his thoughts snapped back together and he realized, _'I am not alone here.'_

Instant awareness flooded him, and he jolted upright, his heart banging frantically. Fear burned, but he was thwarted by his own weakness. His captor pressed him back, forcing him to lie flat, and Iruka couldn't resist the insistent pressure. Dizzy and nauseous, he gave in with a groan, head pillowed against the soft earth.

He gasped, "Who?"

A shadow shifted in response, catching the dim light. It revealed a silhouette – not large, but eerily approximate to his own size. Iruka's eyes narrowed. So approximate, in fact… Then the shadow drew nearer, and suddenly the chuunin could see.

"Impossible," he whispered hoarsely.

The world rotated, and when it righted itself, Iruka found he was staring into a very familiar face – deeply tan with eyes like waves, underlined by a scar as distinct as a thumbprint. The creature leaned forward eagerly, as though wanting to be recognized. It reached out again, patting Iruka's face, and this time the chuunin recognized his own hand.

"Doppelganger," he realized just as his head gave an especially sharp throb. It didn't make sense. "But, I was unconscious. How are you still here?"

The clone didn't speak, either because it would not or because it _could_ not. Instead, it tilted its head, a look of distinct concern on its face. Iruka could only imagine his pallor; every time he moved, he could feel the color drain from his face. Everything either burned or ached.

"You rescued me," he guessed, hoarse and confused. "But I didn't direct that. My instructions were to lead them off the trail."

The doppelganger wagged a finger at him, its stolen features pressed into an expression that was at once firm and fond. Iruka could read its message as clearly as though it had spoken, as if the words had been pressed into his own mind: _'If I had, you would have died.'_

"Then…my survival superseded my original orders." Iruka spoke his hypothesis with a flood of amazement. His body relaxed with a harsh exhale that he didn't know he'd been holding. "The instinct to preserve one's own self," he murmured. "How extraordinary."

* * *

Iruka had come to know the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu legitimately. That is, if one used the word 'legitimate' in the very loose and flexible way of the shinobi. It had been taught to him with the full knowledge and cooperation of his instructor…who had stolen it himself as an eleven-year-old cataclysm in the midst of circumstances that Iruka still remembered by his scars.

At the time, he'd been tutoring Naruto on evenings when his genin training didn't leave him too weary. Basic things, mostly – catch-up things that geniuses didn't think of – and also jutsu with water. It was one such afternoon that the subject of the cloning technique came up.

They'd been practicing, hip deep in one of the forest's deep streams. The water was cool, but the day was hot, even under the canopy. So muggy, in fact, that when Naruto's slip in control had resulted in both of them being soaked the skin, it was almost welcome.

Iruka had laughed at his student's sodden, drooping visage. "Naruto, why are you sulking? You almost had it that time."

The boy responded with a sour look; obviously, he recognized the gentle teasing, but instead of breaking into one of his bright, ebullient smiles, he tucked his chin tight to his chest and _frowned_.

Iruka had been startled. He hadn't seen such an expression on Naruto's face since the young man was ten years old and Iruka had refused him his graduation band for the first time. It was stubborn and petulant and almost a pout. It was also genuinely unhappy.

Wading closer, Iruka placed a hand on the young man's shoulder. "Naruto," he asked. "What's the matter?"

The expression the boy offered him was made even more mournful by the dripping strands of blond hair plastered over his forehead and curling around his expressive eyes. "You teach me stuff," he'd stated bluntly.

Laughter erupted from Iruka's chest before he could restrain it, but he was quickly chastised by Naruto's stung expression and forced himself to sober. "Naruto," he said. "I'm your teacher. I have been since you were a little boy."

"Yeah, but it isn't fair," the child answered, voice pitched to a near whine. "We're a clan, right, Sensei?"

Iruka hesitated only for a moment, too well conditioned to initiate another conversation about blood rights and blood claims. They both took their relationship too seriously for such contention to make any difference between them anymore. Especially now, when Naruto's silver hitai-ate meant that no one could take his right to be a shinobi away from him – certainly not on any grounds that Iruka showed favoritism.

He acknowledged the boy's claim. "Of course, Naruto."

The youth nodded enthusiastically, his limp hair scrapping his forehead. "Well," he insisted, "Then I should teach you stuff too!"

Iruka didn't immediately respond. Then his brows drew together and his hands fell to his hips. "Naruto," he scolded. "I am not performing the sexy no jutsu just so you can humiliate me later. Now, where's the camera?" He peered suspiciously at the young man's baggy jumpsuit, aware of its many pockets; half of them he'd sewn in himself.

The genin huffed. "Not that one. I know more stuff that that, Sensei," he declared, and then his features twisted into a deeper, more significant look.

It took Iruka a moment to understand what he was talking about, but even when he did, he almost couldn't believe what Naruto was suggesting. Glancing around, he leaned in and reminded the boy, very quietly, "It's forbidden for a reason, Naruto."

"Aw, you won't get hurt, Sensei. You've got really, really good control. Besides," he said, and the boy had shown all of his bright, sharp teeth. "_Forbidden_ is just a suggestion for ninjas, right?"

* * *

Iruka sat with his knees drawn up awkwardly, watching himself _watch himself_ as he chewed on a dehydrated meal. The burrow they'd taken shelter in was damp earth reinforced with grass – likely the abandoned den of some marsh-dwelling creature. His ragged ponytail scrapped the low ceiling, but there was space to sit up if he drew himself in, and at least their closeness kept the interior warm in spite of the damp.

"So, you're a Kage Bushin clone," he muttered. "My first clone. If I dismissed you…" But no, he decided. He wasn't sure that he had the strength to summon even one clone again, and he didn't particularly want to be alone, even if his company was technically himself.

The clone, he noticed, seemed captivated by his ration bar. "Do you eat?" Iruka wanted to know, suddenly curious.

The doppelganger licked its lips.

Against his better judgment, Iruka handed over a portion of his meal. Then, while the creature wolfed down the offering gratefully, he took the opportunity to prod it gently in the side. Beneath the fabric, the skin was warm and soft and so _real_. As real and substantial as he was himself.

Iruka shook his head. "This is bizarre. I've never made a clone so solid. Or –" The doppelganger's head came up, suddenly so close that the tip of its marked nose was almost pressed against Iruka's own. He finished, "– expressive."

Once more, his double grinned at him with that quirky tug at the corner of its mouth.

Iruka scolded, "Now you're just being obnoxious. You don't know what's going on any more than I do; we share the same memories." The clone pouted flagrantly, and the chuunin blinked, unused to seeing the expression on his own face. He pulled up his knees and rested against them. "So strange."

* * *

That night as Iruka slept, he dreamed about ghoulish images of a doll-eyed little girl parading on a carousel with black-throated ninja whose mouths were full of teeth. They tore at him with their sharp maws, pursuing him like dogs. And meanwhile, the little girl twirled round and round with the eerie marionette movements of a ballerina music box, her stiff limps hanging limp and broken and her chin sagging open.

He awoke with a panicked inhale, pressed into a small, dark place that he did not know. Momentary panic rose, but before he had a chance to process his surroundings, he was suddenly aware of being warm. Someone was with him. _'Doppelganger,'_ Iruka thought, still breathing hard_._

A sharp chin dug into his shoulder, over the bruises that had been left there in the week Iruka had spent in that house. His cover had been only the lowest kind of servant, fetching, carrying, and sometimes making a little girl smile over the ashes on his face as he lit her fire in the morning. She'd had such a pretty smile, and such a strong spirit.

Which was why, when the assassin had come, he hadn't been able to watch her fetter out. But it had cost him.

The chin behind him dug in deeper, and Iruka squirmed. Naruto had often complained about his sharp chin, but the little boy had never once scorned his embrace when the nightmares came. Iruka didn't either. Instead, he closed his eyes, relaxing slowly, by increments.

He breathed in the heavy, damp air, all the while thinking how strange it was to be comforted by someone who shared your dreams.

* * *

"This is fascinating," Ibiki commented, staring fixedly at the shifting clone. But when the interrogator reached out, the creature recoiled. The brown eyes smoldered, both protective and afraid. Ibiki weighed the double for a long moment, considering its naked expression. "Hm," he commented, arms folded over the breast of his jacket. "Dangerous too."

Iruka agreed. This clone revealed far too much of him.

He extracted himself from his doppelganger's white-knuckled grip. Its worried eyes watched him sway, but Iruka's legs held. Afterwards, he patted the clone's shoulder. "It's alright. You got me home. We're among allies now."

The penetrating glare the creature favored Ibiki with clearly questioned this, but, as always, it remained mute.

"Fascinating," Ibiki said again, though his face remained as blank as before. He shifted, and the shadows draped more thickly over him as he asked, "Do we need to have a discussion, Iruka?"

The chuunin took his superior's question seriously. With his eyes, he traced the ridges of scar tissue that trailed across his mentor's craggy visage until they disappeared under the whirlpool mark of Konoha. He followed the lines of the implacable mouth which Iruka had seen twisted in grimaces, in frowns, and in cruel snarls. The arms were braced across a broad chest of green canvas, hands hidden in the crux their folding made – hands Iruka knew well, and in too many capacities. He looked intently at Ibiki and tried to imagine what his doppelganger saw, but all he could find there was _teacher_ – in all its complicated senses – and, deeper still, _friend._

Iruka relaxed. "No, I don't think so. I'm not sure what's wrong with it."

The interrogator hummed, a keen look in his sharp eyes. Iruka didn't take this doubt personally; it was Ibiki's job. But he was still glad when he saw the man's shoulders lower – acceptance. "We'll have to consider this apparition another time. For now, I need your report."

A shudder that he could never fully control rippled through Iruka, but he nodded anyway, a smile of acceptance forming on his face. He stretched gingerly – his bones hurt, muscles ached. The alternating sting and pinprick feeling was still there. But he was almost done, almost home, and the thought soothed him, as it always did.

Meanwhile, the doppelganger watched him, all dark, silent eyes, deep and contemplative and unknowable. But it was still himself, and Iruka winked at it deliberately, ignoring the way it frowned. "I'll see you later."

The creature shifted, one foot to another. Resignation didn't need words. It raised its hand, offering him a tiny, timid wave. I'll see you soon, it said. See you soon.

* * *

Author's Note: While it can be read alone, clearly this story is connected to the universe of "Strangely Together, Uniquely Apart" and its sequels. Iruka's first clone features in each part of the trilogy, most prominently in "Flesh and Feelinigs".


	27. Quite Contrary

**27. Quite Contrary**

Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Inuzuka Tsume, Hana, & Kiba

Summary: The Inuzuka compound rarely receives casual visitors, but Tsume learns not to underestimate the power of contrariness, which Iruka-sensei has in spades.

* * *

Tsume was an immensely practical woman.

It came with her bloodline, that canine-Inuzuka element which made them so unique even in a Hidden Village supporting the variety that Konoha did. Like the animals with whom they partnered and shared their lives, she and her kin tended to be blissfully content with life _just as it was_ – a trait that left them almost incapable of being maudlin, but also occasionally lead them to just _accept_ certain things.

Tsume had never really thought about those things she just accepted, until one day she found herself butting up against them in the form of her little son.

It was early morning, and she was on her way to breakfast. A grumble very like a growl slipped out, though if it was directed at anything in particular it could only have been the sun just now rising over the village wall. Padding at her heel, Kuromaru yawned, then lifted his wolf-like head to nip her fingers.

"Crabby today, aren't we?" he rumbled, but the woman only muttered, pressing her hip against the kitchen door so that it swung forward on it's hinges.

The door lead into a space filled with wooden cupboards, drawers upon drawers of dried herbs for both man and animals, and a great potbellied stove so battered with age that it was obvious this was a well-lived in, family place. Hana was making breakfast, but her boy sat bowed over the table, slumped and dubitably conscious.

His hair was stiff and eccentric with sleep, matted wisps sticking up in every direction. Tsume took a moment to rake her fingers through it, mashing it down until only the tips stuck out irregularly. Her chin twitched sideways; there, that should be good enough for school at least.

Tsume was reaching blearily for the high shelf where the coffee was kept when her son stirred himself and spoke.

"Ma, did you remember that sensei is coming today?" Her blank look must have been eloquent because his face squished up with irritation. "Told you yesterday. Sensei is coming for a con-fer-ence." He pronounced each syllable of this last word with deliberate care.

"Iruka-sensei is coming here?" Hana had been stirring porridge with a resolute concentration that allowed her to ignore everything else, but now she stopped, spoon poised and cheeks spotted. At her feet, one of the triplets whined, nudging her thigh.

Tsume paused, trying to decide what to say. She remembered making the acquaintance of Kiba's academy teacher; he was, as she recalled, almost a pup himself, with a very earnest face and brown eyes. Kiba worshiped him with all the passionate adoration of his young heart.

She licked her lips. "The compound isn't exactly a safe place for outsiders. Why don't you just tell your teacher that I'll schedule a time to meet him at the school?"

Her son's expression became mulish. "Ruka-sensei said you missed _two_ meetings," he informed her.

A grimace of chagrin crossed the matron's face, and she scratched her mane of stiff, dark hair. Both times she'd been called away on missions at the last moment. It was one of the many hazards of being a parent and a shinobi. Another was having to tell her child that his beloved teacher could not possibly be expected to visit him, because the dogs were simply much too threatening and territorial. They were _nin-dogs_ after all.

"Kiba, you know he won't be able to come here."

Her son was looking rather querulous. It was the age, she thought, and inwardly sighed. The male pups always had to push their weight around just a little. She warned him, "You should be careful growling at someone with bigger teeth than yours, little boy."

He sulked, but the stubbornness didn't fade. He crossed his arms.

"Kiba." Tsume tried to be more gentle, though it came somewhat awkwardly for her. She braced herself against the table so that she could look him directly in the eyes. "I'm not trying to be mean. It's just the way things are."

Pouting, her son raised his chin. "Sensei said," he insisted. "And he _never_ lies."

Tsume fought the urge to contradict him. A ninja who never lied? Not even her people – a generally earnest and straightforward set – could claim so much. Yet that wasn't a discussion she was willing to have with her five-year-old. Let him have his childhood a little longer.

* * *

It was a bright, fall afternoon, clear and blue with only a few lazy banners of cloud swirling high and indistinct in the firmament. The wind smelled like old growth and Tsume was enjoying the fine weather as she labored at an outdoor workbench, repairing her gear.

She did not expect any interruptions; her son's declaration about visitors had totally escaped her mind. Even when a sharp voice suddenly barked her name, she merely raised her chin with mild interest.

The summon came from one of the most senior females of her family, a second cousin. Stocky and good-humored, the woman jogged nearer, face florid with barely constrained amusement. At her side, her black and white companion trotted, boxy jowls open and laughing.

"What is it?" Tsume asked.

The matron had both her hands pressed against her sides, obviously suppressing laughter by a very narrow margin. "Tsume," she said. "It seems we have a guest – a teacher from the academy."

From his sprawled position, Kuromaru lifted his great head, his single ear fluttering with interest. He asked, "Iruka-sensei?"

The jounin laid down the kunai she'd been whetting, surprised. Belatedly, she remembered her son's passionate declaration that Iruka _was _coming and that he _wouldn't_ be too afraid of the dog to pass through the gates.

"He's here?" she questioned; it required an effort to keep the word _'how'_ clinched firmly behind her teeth. "Where is he?" And then, more forcefully as the other woman's face crinkled and reddened with mirth, "Well?"

Finally, the woman couldn't bear it any longer.

"They've treed him!" she exclaimed, and erupted into hearty guffaws that came straight from her belly. Waving her hand at the other's incredulous expression, she insisted, "No. It can't be described. You'll just have to come see for yourself."

Tsume heard the commotion before she saw it. Near the center of the commons, bordering a clutch of sheds, was a stretch of tall, sturdy trees. At its base, a throng of dogs had gathered, barking hysterically and pawing at the already scarred trunk. An equally animated pack of youngsters was also present, as well as a number of adults who were barely hiding their host of grins and chortles behind stiff cheeks and forced coughs. Like the animals, their eyes were trained high.

Bemused, Tsume followed their line of sigh.

_Dear __Inugami__ who wags forever,_ she blasphemed.

For there he was, up the tree like a cat – Kiba's sensei – bristling and trembling all down the length of him. His mussed pony tail was fluffed and sticking straight up like a lashing tail. Yet though he quivered visibly, knuckles bone-white against the thick tree branch onto which he was clinging, his face was admirably calm.

"Ah," he began when he caught sight of her. He shifted his feet and a sprinkle of bark drizzled downward, setting the dogs to barking again. Iruka swallowed. "Good afternoon, Tsume-sama. Did Kiba give you my message about wanting a conference?"

Several of the young women who had gathered tittered outrageously, and one whispered to Tsume in an undertone, "He's a spunky one, ain't he?"

"He is that," the matron conceded, still feeling bewildered. "Though you wouldn't know it to look at him."

"Hm. I bet if you checked his teeth…"

"Oh, hush," Tsume ordered, her temperament finally reasserting itself. She gestured vaguely at both the rabble of children and animals in one motion. "Run off those mutts." Then, looking up with her hands on her hips, she called loudly, "Are you going to come down, Sensei?"

There was the barest hesitation, and Tsume imagined his dark eyes surveying the dubious safety of the ground, still occupied by squirming animals. However, the next moment he was beside her, straightening from his crouch with only the slightest bashful hanging of his head.

A waft of him reached her nose, and Tsume inhaled involuntarily, unable to restrain her upward twitching lips. He even smelled like a cat; there must be one in his home. Could there be a less likely persona in her compound? Yet here he was, still stubbornly clinging to an armful of papers bearing her son's name.

"Thank you for your welcome," Iruka greeted. He bent at the waist in a formal bow as he did so, and in spite of generally not sparing the slightest care for such ceremony, Tsume was pleased.

At times, her family's lack of reserve _– _or of _stuffy self-importance_, as some of her kin were wont to call it – led the other great houses to treat the Inuzuka as if they were _common_. Iruka's gesture of respect relaxed her, and she responded affably to his thanks. "It might have been a tad over warm."

"Ah, well," Iruka laughed, ruefully fingering the tears in the cloth of his chuunin uniform. "It's alright. I've been teaching Naruto to sew and we can always use object lessons."

She presented the beast waiting patiently at her side, currently gazing at the teacher with a cunning silver eye. "I'm sure you remember meeting Kuromaru."

The great wolf-dog parted his jaws, showing his teeth. It was an inscrutable expression. "You're as surprising as ever, Sensei," he said in his smoky voice.

There was a pause before the young man answered, as though he were considering just how to answer such a vaguely-intentioned comment. Finally, he inclined his head once more, saying, "Thank you, Kuromaru-san. It's my pleasure to see you again."

Kuromaru liked his polite manner too. Shinobi who regularly worked without companions or summons often neglected the old forms. Without meaning to, both woman and dog let down a measure of their guard.

The teacher followed them as they lead him toward the main house and more certain privacy for their meeting. As they walked, Tsume noticed the way Iruka's eyes tracked over their property. "You're home is beautiful," he commented at one point.

The Inuzuka compound was wholly unlike the Nara clan with its sprawling pasture lands and intermittent cottages, or the Hyuuga's elegant, precise grounds, or even the Uchira's barrack-like austerity. Rather, it was an unplanned jumble of homes that butted up against each other in a friendly way, irregularly pockmarked with trees, patches of grass, with kennels, with training areas, masticated toys, and tooth-scrapped bones. Some might have called it plain, but there was no doubting the sincerity in the teacher's voice.

It was one more mark in his favor.

"I must say, I'm impressed," she said. "I told Kiba not to expect you."

Iruka had a way of rubbing his neck that was disarmingly self-depreciating. "I had my misgivings, I confess."

"Yet here you are. And not much the worse for wear." His skin, a shade darker than her own, was raw in places with scratches from the branches. Leaves adorned his mussed hair, and Tsume found this made her feel suddenly fond. Laughing, she gave his haunch an appreciative swat, ignoring the way he flinched in surprise at the sudden turn in her mood. "Why did you come? Surely not because Kiba bit someone again."

"No," Iruka responded immediately. "He's confined himself to only very conventional tantrums recently. Though I did have to remind him to stop smelling the new boy in class." He was smiling as he spoke, obviously reminiscing.

Tsume joined him in the memory. She had first met 'Ruka-sensei' when her son had marked the rookie teacher during his first year the academy, shortly before proceeding to bite a blonde, fluffy-haired toddler in a territorial dispute. She rolled her eyes as she remembered. _That_ had been some parent-teacher conference, but then, all Inuzuka boys had to learn at some point that peeing and biting were not acceptable behaviors among allies.

"In that case, what was so important that you had to make a personal visit?"

They had reached their destination and Iruka suddenly stopped, facing her squarely. "Do you mean aside from the fact that twice you did not show up for our scheduled meeting?" he asked frankly.

She had been so accustomed to his consummate courtesy that this sudden change felt like an attack. Tsume bristled involuntarily, and a low-pitched rumble swelled in Kuromaru's throat. The dog cautioned, "Careful, sensei."

"Forgive me." The answer was automatic, but the man's eyes were sharp and flat in a way that was distinctly _not sorry_. Iruka pressed his handful of papers into her unwilling arms, and she examined them warily. There was a red mark squared neatly in each corner, and as she flipped through, a frown slipped onto her countenance. The scores were underwhelming, but she had not expected any better. Kiba was typically unacademic, as were most of their people.

She looked up. "What is it that you want me to see, Sensei?"

This provoked him, just slightly. She could see it in the glint of his eye, a fighting look. "If I had to use one word to describe Kiba, it would be unmotivated. He seems to think that he's no good at the bookwork, and so he doesn't try."

"Inuzuka's have never excelled at seats and books and words on a page," she said it with the conviction born of long repetition. As it had been said to her as a child. It had been said to her great-grandmother. It was one of those things one just _accepted._

Iruka did a little bristling of his own. "_That_'_s_ a stereotype," he challenged.

Stunned further by the disrespectfulness of his demeanor, Tusme's own became very stern. If this pup thought he was going to lecture her about the merits of her own family… "Sensei, I appreciate your concern, but –"

Iruka interrupted. "Tsume-sama, I am saying nothing against the special contributions of your clan, and Kiba is growing to be a fine shinobi. But this mythology you have been nurturing is going to handicap your boy."

So blunt and straightforward.

Tsume had been the matron of the Inuzuka clan since her grandmother's passing during the seventeenth year of her life. _'Still a scrawny whelp,'_ the formidable, elderly woman had rasped, idly stroking the forehead of daughter's-child. _'Scrawny but strong. Bite hard. Lead well,'_ she'd imparted. And then she'd died. Since then, Tsume had directed the pack, proudly bearing the duel marks of her house boldly on both cheeks.

Yet Iruka's convicted words worked in her mind, churning there beside the ones she had always heard and accepted. For a long time she merely stood, considering. Then, finally, she commented, "You're a recklessly human individual, aren't you, Sensei?"

The tension broke like a hoar of frost, and, released from the thaw, Iruka gave a breathy huff. "So I've been told," he said. "It's not a very good trait for a shinobi, is it?"

"Some would say no," the woman responded. "But we Inuzuka's have never been what I would call _conventional_."

It was true, and Tsume added this to her consideration. Then, slowly, her lips parted. People thought the Inuzuka smiled a great deal more than was average for shinobi, but this was a deceptive truth. Certainly they did take opportunity to flash their teeth. She showed them now.

"I think I like you, Sensei" she decided, and gestured at the grade reports. "I'll talk to Kiba about this."

Iruka's shoulders slumped, as though released from a great weight. "Thank you, Tsume-san," he said, and all the regular civility was back, as innocuous and off-putting as though it had never held any edge at all.

Interesting, Tsume pondered, but before she had a chance to give it any real thought, her youngest came careening through the threshold, eyes lighting brilliantly when he saw his teacher.

"Sensei!" he crowed, pouncing on the young man's knees.

Iruka tottered against the force of the effulgent display, but he regained his balance with the grace of long practice and braced his hands against his student's shoulders. "Kiba. I'm sorry I'm a little late. I was distracted at the gate."

"It's because you smell good, Sensei," Kiba's reassured him. He pressed his nose, scrunching it beneath his finger. "Kinda spicy and nice."

The teacher's response was exasperated but affectionate. "So you've said."

There was an anxious whine from the doorway, and Tsume looked up to find a gaggle of curious faces peering in, all red cheeks and wagging tails. The clan leader sighed.

"You'd better stay for dinner, Sensei," she told him. "Tonight you're a celebrity."

* * *

Dinner was a colorful affair, full of bustle. The whole compound was in an uproar over their unusual guest; Tsume didn't think they'd been more enthusiastic over Sarutobi's last visit. But then, perhaps that wasn't so surprising. Like the office of the Hokage, the academy was an institution to which everyone was tied.

She had set Iruka in a place of honor at the table, Kiba perched proudly beside him. It was amusing to watch the teacher's eyes grow big at the overlarge slab of venison placed before him, and his attempt not to look startled when one of the animals nudged his thigh with its wet nose, resting its chin on his knee in hopes of a falling morsel.

The human beings were just as eager, crowding close for a word or a joke. There was also a great deal of causal sniffing and touching, which the young man was clearly unaccustomed to.

It was funny as hell, but the highlight of the evening came once the meal was over. There was a sudden, unusual quiet, and Tsume raised her head, staring with everyone else as one of the littlest children padded carefully down the aisle between tables, balancing a saucer of cream between upturned palms.

All night, the children had been especially attentive to Iruka, hovering under his elbows or leaning into his lap. Now, with a cross-eyed look of concentration, this little one laid her burden on the table and tugged on their guest's arm. "Sensei?"

Iruka looked at the offering, clearly puzzled by it and the nearly frozen silence all around him. The child scrapped the shallow dish closer and Tsume had to cover her mouth behind a spread of fingers.

"Do you like milk, Sensei?" she wondered, voice only slightly choked.

Iruka was a picture of incomprehension, but then the eyes of the little gift-giver began swelling with anticipatory tears, and he took up the saucer by its rim and drank deeply. "Mm," he commented afterward, and the child flushed with pleasure. Possibly the only thing that could have said to please her more was "meow."

Afterward, the crowd dissolved into throaty, unrestrained laugher, their reception of this oddball in their midst redoubled. Iruka's nearest neighbor clasped his neck familiarly under one massive shoulder. Another leaned across the table and patted his captured head.

All while Tsume watched, taking time to observe how well he seemed to fit here among her people, in spite of everything.

She also saw the way that her daughter looked at Iruka throughout the meal, stealing discerning glances and then ducking her head to hide the blood that pooled in her face.

After that, Tsume looked at Iruka with an even more speculative eye, noting his flexible build and wiry but broad shoulders. Good balance, nice, straight white teeth and glossy hair – both indications of a good vitamin balance and immunity. Hands and feet still a little big, but he would be handsome when he was full sized.

It was apparent that he would only ever be an average shinobi, but there was much to be said for new blood. He was sturdy and healthy and brave, and as for strength…well, it was really more about the mother in these cases, one of the many reasons that the Inuzuka clan had traditionally been a matriarchy.

Tsume leaned forward on her elbows against the smooth grain of the table and smiled an especially toothy, self-satisfied grin. Perhaps she would have to discuss the Umino bloodline with the Sandaime.

* * *

Author's Note: I admit to being influenced by a passing reference made in **chibi heishi**'s story _In Defense of the Tamer_ (which was in turn influenced by **WhyMustIWrite**'s story _Not Over Until the Paperwork is In_). In it, she pondered on Iruka's first visit to the Inuzuka compound, and the scene was so charming that I simply had to poke (inelegantly) at its corners. Have I mentioned that I have a secret thing for a Iruka-Hana pairing? Or at least the idea that Tsume does?


	28. Liaison

**28. Liaison**

Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Kyuubi

Summary: Iruka returns home injured from a mission, and Kyuubi takes the opportunity to visit with its favorite.

* * *

Kyuubi had claimed Sensei from its first bleary blink at him out of an infant's eyes. The boy – for Iruka was a boy then – had been a whetted knife, poised to take the throat out of Kyuubi's flesh-and-bone prison. In a flash of lightning, the Fox had looked up and seen the gritted teeth, the flashing brown eyes torn up with grief and fury and pain. It had been _exquisite_.

Of course, Sensei had spared them. The little vessel had gurgled out of his brand new mouth and waved his tiny arms and Iruka had crumbled. Afterward, he sat beside Kyuubi with the point of his blade buried in the ground and his body had heaved with sobs. Kyuubi had liked the tears as much as it had the anger. It imagined them stinging the open wounds on the child's face and swelled with satisfaction.

Kyuubi had decided right there in that moment: Mine. Then it had spent the next discrete years making good on that statement of ownership.

It was raining, and the apartment was a confined space. Against the streaked window pane, the night ranged – close. It leaked inward, into the unlit kitchen. But there was a deeper darkness there, throbbing in the crevices.

The apartment had been empty for long enough for a layer of dust to settle. It lay over the surfaces like an incomprehensibly fragile veil, and indeed, it broke like a web at the first staggering step, at the first hand that lurched for purchase against the counter's surface.

Iruka had been on a mission. He sagged as he made his way further into the presumed safety of his home. _'But no sleeping for sensei, no,' _the darkness crooned, and light refracted, incandescent, off of eager, watching eyes.

"Sensei," it said finally, shifting out of the doorway.

Iruka stumbled, faltering against the counter which bore his weight. His arms trembled as he erringly lifted his head. Trackless, nearly insensate brown eyes squinted, and his sweat was a sheen on his face. Wounded; Kyuubi could smell his blood from the door.

"N-naruto?" Iruka muttered uncertainly.

Naruto? Well, yes – in form. Blue eyes blinked deliberately as it prowled closer, clinching and unclenching its fists. It had come the moment it had sensed the flickering beacon of Sensei's presence near the village's edge, weak like a bird dragging its wing. Kyuubi had come, seeking its favorite.

Sensei couldn't stand any longer. A shudder rippled through his body, and he subdued, sinking to the floor. Kyuubi waited until he had laboriously turned his back against the cabinetry before ranging nearer, and then it knelt, crouched on the balls of its borrowed feet.

"Hello," it said.

Sensei flinched from him by instinct, and that pleased Kyuubi. It leaned forward, still grinning with too many teeth.

"Sensei," it said again, and Kyuubi reached to press the man's sweaty temples between his palms. The wave-and-tide brown eyes were clouded with pain, and Ninetails watched them ramble over his face without recognition. Kyuubi could smell his exhaustion; he'd been running heels to the ground for a long time, and now he had nothing left.

Iruka's head dipped heavily as Kyuubi sat down beside him, too disoriented to resist being tucked under the beast's chin and held there, beating his heart out against Kyuubi's skin. There had been a time when Kyuubi had only been able to imagine possessing the size and strength to display this dominance, but now that the waiting was over, Kyuubi sighed. Its patience had been worth it.

Kyuubi nuzzled the teacher's neck, nipping the trapeze of skin at its base, which was already latticed with scars. It drew blood, enough to scent the air and enliven the beast with the risk it took by marking him. But, after all, Iruka already had many marks. This didn't please Kyuubi – _all_ the marks should belong to him – but it did make things easier, because no one ever noticed his influence.

Then again, no one ever noticed Sensei. Only Kyuubi.

Iruka's chest hitched suddenly, and for a moment Kyuubi watched him labor to breathe. His ribs were yielding too easily; perhaps something had finally torn. Unwilling to end their meeting, the creature pressed its hand to Sensei's chest and discharged a small, blistering surge of chakra.

The man's cry was reminiscent of an animal caught under the press of claws. Ninetails approved; after all, Sensei wasn't made to hold _Kyuubi's_ power. However, the foreign chakra would stem his deteriorating condition for a while. Indeed, the man's breathing eased even as the pained sound died on his lips.

Kyuubi sighed again, gripping Iruka tighter, but after a while the half-embrace became cloying. Iruka revived some then, squirming in discomfort. He drew a halting breath, forming a weak protest. "N-naru-u…"

"Nooo," Kyuubi silken voice drew out with his displeasure, and for the second time, his charka uncoiled. It was too much for Sensei's overwrought system; he fought back, hopelessly. The lightning current intensified – promise, punishment. Feverish, the teacher writhed, until finally some instinct reached deep into his mind and finally Sensei named him.

Supplication and realization in a high, breathless voice: "K-kyuuubi –"

Then the beast was satisfied. It pet the dark hair, the trembling back, humming with contentment. Sensei knew his master.

There weren't enough nights like these, it reflected, but soon there would be. One day, Kyuubi would be free once more and would rise like a war cry in a song. Then the earth would rift and splinter, and Konoha would become a broken ruin beneath the weight of its feet. None would be spared, no shinobi, or cringing civilian, or wretched, wailing child. None except the one Kyuubi would keep for itself, his sensei.

Soon, Kyuubi comforted itself – soon.

But for now, there was blood on Sensei's teeth. It was probably time to take him to the hospital.

* * *

Iruka's sleep was troubled with fragments of red lightning and the sensation of burning. Blue-violet eyes scorched him, intensely hungry and inhuman, and he thrashed under the feeling of being pinned down. Someone jostled him, and fingers – _claws_, his mind hissed hysterically – bore into his shoulders. It called his name, but that only made him recoil with confusion that a voice so familiar could sound so terrible, so harbinging, so –

"Sensei!" the summon intensified, and Iruka felt his eyes crack open to a shaft of light. A face loomed over him, framed by a fringe of blonde hair, Blue, blue eyes...

Iruka's whole body went rigid, tensing with fear. He sputtered, "K-k –"

"Easy. Easy, Sensei," Naruto's hands were comforting now, gently pressing him back. His earnest supplication was filled with concern. "Hey, it's just me."

Every sharp puff of air made Iruka feel as though is ribs were being viscously twisted, but even so, Iruka couldn't keep his chest from heaving. It took long, hazy moments for any kind of calm to reassert itself, and in that time, his eyes wandered over the colorless walls around him, the narrow bed. Bandages supported his body, which he tested with a sharp inhale. Reason reasserted itself; he was in the hospital.

"Are you okay, Sensei?"

Naruto had manifested a damp cloth from somewhere nearby – _table,_ Iruka registered his surroundings – and wiped the beads of sweat from his teacher's face.

"I…" Iruka stammered. Unexplainably, the red lighting and the oppressive heat swarmed up before his eyes as he looked into the face of his precious person, and he shook his head dizzily. "Ah. Just, just a bad dream," he said, fighting the gorge that had risen to his throat. Just that same reoccurring dream. He smiled then, even if it sagged a little at the edges. "Naruto. I'm so glad to see you. How are you?"

The young man laughed, his usual effervescence washing away the disquiet as though it were a twig in a flood. "_I'm_ fine, Sensei," he insisted. "You, on the other hand, look a little chewed up."

Iruka took a moment to evaluate the twinges and aches and decided that if his appearance at all matched the way he felt, then he must look fairly destroyed. He settled back against the pillow and closed his eyes. "Mm. Difficult mission.

"You should have come to see Tsunade baa-chan," Naruto admonished him, then – seeing his teacher's expression – he grunted with exasperation. "Or at least the hospital!" His forehead creased again. "If you'd been on your own, they say you might have died."

Something about his words made Iruka feel uneasy, and he fidgeted against the narrow mattress. "Actually, I don't remember where I went after I got back into the village. How did I –"

Naruto scratched his head. "Ah, well," he admitted. "I happened to be between missions and got this feeling you'd be home today, so I sort of broke into your apartment to wait for you. But I must have fallen asleep." He shrugged. "Anyway. You scared me, Sensei."

This half-embarrassed admission was accompanied by the young man gripping him, and Iruka realized, somewhat ruefully, that their hands were the same size these days. Naruto's fingers were even longer, and very firm around his own. He sighed, chagrinned. "Half grown and already you're taking care of me."

Another chuckle bubbled up. "I think I still have a bit of ground to cover before I pay you back."

Memories flooded Iruka, and he grinned at those words as he looked fondly over the young man who had once been one of his cast-offs. His wild mane was a longer now, the face sharper with age and more sure and radiant than even before as he gained strength and skill. Iruka was proud of him. He'd grown up so much.

Meanwhile, Iruka's free hand found its way to his neck, where yet another itch of pain was pinching.

Naruto followed the movement. Frowning, he drew Iruka's fingers away from a ridge of puncture wounds clipped into the space near his jugular. "What's that?"

"Oh?" But the injury was in an awkward place, and the teacher couldn't see it well, even when he craned. He assured, "I'm sure it's nothing. I don't remember where I pick up half of my scratches during a mission. Your pitiful, injury-prone sensei." He sighed in half-sincere self-degradation. "I'm afraid the Godaime is overestimating my ability."

A twinkle of mischief flickered, and Naruto teased, "Well, these are desperate times."

Iruka swatted at him, scolding while the young man laughed and dragged one hand through longish blond bangs. But through it all, he never let go of the grip he had on his teacher. No, that stayed, with Sensei's fingers twined, caught up inexorably in his.

* * *

In another part of the hospital, two novice medicos discussed their most recent patient over a hasty lunch break. One asked between bites, "That Umino's file?"

"I'm puzzled about it," the other admitted, tapping the sheets. "The state he was in when he got here..."

Unimpressed, the other snorted. "He just got back from a month-long mission. There's nothing unexpected about him being in bad shape."

"But I can't account for all of his injuries. And his charka pathways," the young medic murmured. "I've rarely seen such extensive scarring. Long-term transfer of charka is dangerous enough when rendered professionally, but his records show that he's never received such treatment, even once."

His companion leaned back, taking a long, contemplative draw from his glass. After he'd swallowed, he spoke quietly, "Some of the more experienced healers say that Umino is usually processed by Ibiki. Perhaps it's classified."

A widening of the eyes, and then a slow nod. No one wanted to find themselves mixed up with Torture & Interrogation. The young man ventured, "It probably doesn't mean anything. Not even worth mentioning in the report."

"No," his colleague confirmed, shuddering. "Probably not."


	29. Basket of Flowers

**29. Basket of Flowers**

Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Ino, Yamanaka Inoichi

Summary: Ino struggles with the fact that her father arranges flowers, that she would rather have a date than sharpen a kunai, and that she was supposed to be born a boy.

* * *

Ino was perturbed. Perturbed and _seething_ with the injustice of the world. So much of her young heart was taken up in its hard, angry beating that she could scarcely keep the pencil from shaking in her hand. The quiet of the classroom ached in her ears, broken only by a faint scratching of Sensei's stylus and the little, amplified creaks of the empty desks and chairs behind her.

And it wasn't _fair_.

All of the other students had gone home long before, hustling out the door in a flutter of marked exam papers and elated or morose expressions. Ino had been left holding her own, lip jutting out stubbornly at the message printed in neat red characters along the top: _'See me after class.'_

Iruka-sensei's face had been very grave when he informed her that she would not be allowed to leave until every question had been reworked. The girl flushed even now, thinking of it. She knew for a fact that at least half of her classmates had scored just as low. Yet here she was, hunched over Sensei's desk, watching the sun go down through the classroom's partially opened windows.

Glaring down at her half-completed test, she scowled and rubbed angrily at one particularly mangled answer. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, Ino threw down her eraser and collapsed. Pressing her forehead against the desk, she groaned, "Sensei, if I don't get something to eat, I think I'm gonna die."

Iruka-sensei didn't even look up, instead flicking yet another paper into a growing pile. The movement betrayed an underlying irritation. Shortly, he censured, "You might have thought of that before you wasted so much time."

The little girl bit her cheek, pouting fragrantly. It wasn't like sensei to be so cross with her. Usually he was really patient, much more patient than the other teachers who had come and gone, driven out by Naruto or one of her other _difficult_ classmates. Iruka was the first one who hadn't started tugging on his hair after the first week.

But it wasn't like she was one of the other little ogres that Iruka-sensei had been known to keep here for hours and hours. So what if she had messed up on her test? Everybody knew that girls weren't good at math.

She threatened, "If I don't go home, my family will be worried."

Her teacher said, "Nice try. I've already sent a message to your father. He was very supportive."

Eyes sliding resentfully to half-mast, Ino pillowed her face in crossed arms. "Of course he was," she muttered.

Where all other ploys had failed, this finally mustered her teacher's complete attention. Pen pausing mid-stroke, he glared at her with daunting sobriety. "I hope that was not a disrespectful remark about Yamanaka-san."

"I don't see what's so great about him," she moped in a voice that was so unhappy she had to hide her face. "My papa sells _flowers_."

Iruka-sensei regarded her for a long moment, and then reached out with curled finger to flick her forehead with a resounding smack.

"Ow!" Howling, she pressed against the rising welt and wiggled indignantly in her chair, trying to will away the stinging. Voice strained in outrage, she wailed, "Sensei, why did you do that?"

"Your father is one of the most stable jounin I know. You are extremely lucky," he told her. "Do you wish he arranged battle katana? Or perhaps you would have preferred if he had stayed active and never had any children."

Ino felt her lip creep out. The point was not lost on her, even at her age. She knew what happened when her friends' parents left; it meant they might not come back. Much more subdued, she muttered, "You're being really mean, Sensei."

Iruka gestured at her with his finger. "I'm not your papa, so don't expect any rose-tinted advice from me." Then, reclaiming his abandoned stylus, he added, "And _stop_ teasing Sakura about her forehead. You're giving her a complex."

"But Sasuke –"

"No, none of that. You're giving him a complex, too."

Annoyed, frustrated, and stung with the multiple rebukes, Ino fisted her hands over the exam paper. "I hate math."

Sensei mercilessly reiterated his ultimatum: "Nose, test. As I said before, you may go home only when you have every answer correct."

Wretchedly, Ino seethed with the unfairness of the demand. "I don't _know,"_ she insisted.

A flash of reproof touched her teacher's mouth. "Yes you do," he said. "And don't you dare play dumb with me. You knew every answer on that test, didn't you, Ino? What were you thinking, pulling a stunt like that?"

Caught. The accusation was so sudden that the little girl had no time to hide her reaction. Fighting down a shiver of shame, she tried to cover up the guilt implied by her rapidly blinking eyes, her stiff face. Somewhere between her head and her mouth, however, the words got all tangled up and instead she blurted:

"My papa wishes I was a boy."

By the look on Sensei's face, that wasn't what he'd expected either. His lips pressed straight and tight, and he said, "That's the stupidest thing you've said today, and that's quite a feat."

Heat prickling her cheeks, Ino hunched. "He does. Cause of Shikamaru and Chouji."

The insecurity she kept squished down inside must have been plain in her crushed expression, because Sensei stopped looking so mad. "Do you really think he feels that way?"

Her admission was a blond ponytail wagging as she buried her face back down in the crook of her arms.

Iruka didn't answer immediately. From outside, cricket sounds were starting. When her teacher finally spoke, he was using his sensei-voice, the quiet, serious one which was impossible to ignore. "Did you know," he asked. "That for every one hundred male shinobi in the field, there are only thirty kunoichi?"

It was a fact that, at one point or another, weighed down very heavily on every fledgling ninja who felt her gender in skinny legs and a fragile form. Often during the years of budding womanhood, but sometimes also in discontented little ten-year-old girls.

"Yeah, it's so unfair."

Sensei shook his head. "It means you are rare and special," he said. "You will have abilities and opportunities completely closed to the sons of your father's friends."

The words brought a little forlorn catch to Ino's throat. She wasn't sure if she even _wanted_ that. Trying to make him understand, she stammered, "Sensei, I-I just want to go on a date. I want a boy to _like_ me."

"Do you think they will like you more for your weaknesses or your strengths?" He tapped her exam paper pointedly, and the challenge rang in her ears. The he closed the distance between them, leaning forward so that his voice could not be lost in the empty room. "Your father feels lucky to have you, Ino, just as you are."

Iruka-sensei had a way of saying things that made them easy to believe. Still, she couldn't help but ask, "You're sure, Sensei?"

"Yes," he deadpanned. "Boys eat more and have god-awful manners. Girls are much brighter."

"Really?"

"Oh, yes. When you aren't as strong, you need to be smart. No matter what your gender is." The message he was sending dawned on her slowly, and she thought about the comments that she sometimes heard about academy sensei and ranking and weakness. Iruka looked at her with sharp, intelligent eyes and asked, "Do you understand?"

Ino returned his gaze, inwardly deciding. Then she lifted her chin. "A throwing knife with a length of 30 centimeters will travel 2 meters before rotating in the air 360 degrees."

Iruka smiled. "Good girl."

Her papa came by the academy to pick her up, just as Ino was putting down her final answer. She handed the paper to Sensei confidently, watching as he gazed over it with a critical eye. When he finally looked at her, it was with a satisfied kind of smile that she was certain looked proud.

"Good girl," he repeated.

Her father said, "I'm sorry that you had to give up so much of your evening, Sensei. You must be tired."

Graciously, Iruka bowed. "It was nothing, Yamanaka-san. And besides that, it is always my pleasure to work with your family. The amount of normal that you project always lifts my spirits."

The words had no sooner left his mouth, however, before his arms were filled with an enormous bundle of deep violet irises, amaranth, and twinkling little white bellflowers. An incongruous arrangement unless one knew the language of flowers.

"Ah," Iruka-sensei commented rather helplessly, arms stretched around them.

Her father smiled warmly. "Thank you for looking out for Ino-chan, Sensei. I know that you always push her to do her best."

They were well outside the academy walls when her father coughed into his hand, a noise very like an abbreviated laugh. Casting his merry eyes down at her, he said, "You'd better listen to him, little girl. He's one of the good ones."

"He's really mean, though," Ino answered, pressing into his side so that she was squished under his arm. He laughed, squeezing her fondly.

"The best ones always are. When you're that sweet, you've got to be tough as nails just to keep the world at bay."

It was the second piece of advice that evening that Ino took very much to heart. Tough and smart. It was the kind of kunoichi she was going to be.

* * *

Author's Note: My intention for mentioning the language of flowers was to make you curious enough to look it up for yourself, so no fair asking. Homework! This is why kids think teachers are so mean.


	30. Defying Worth

**30. Defying Worth**

Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Kakashi

Summary: The definition of value in a shinobi society, as seen throughout Iruka's life.

* * *

They stood at the edge of a rocky shore, black and pitted under their inadequate sandals. Iruka could feel the sharp stones straight through his soles, and he leaned his cheek into his mother's hip, wearily hanging on her hand.

In front of them, his father faced the sullen ferryman who stood repeating, "That's the price. No exceptions. If you don't like it, you can go around. Six days travel."

Above them, after a precipitous climb, the edge of the forest could be seen splaying out its needles, heavy and sodden. Iruka felt his mother tense, saw her eyes trace the dense wood and then the empty, stark line of coast behind them.

His father's hands were fused from holding onto his temper, and the muscles of his back and shoulders bulged beneath his travel-worn shirt. Once, he'd had an armored vest, but it had been traded long ago; now you could see his ribs through the fabric.

"I told you, we don't have the local currency."

The ferryman wasn't a diminutive man. His arms were tanned and corded from the labor of his trade; certainly he wasn't intimidated by three weary refugees. Instead, he flexed his hands over his oar and let his eyes casually fall. In spite of his age, Iruka understood the evaluating look the man raked over his mother, and clinched his eyes shut when the hot, interested gaze bore hooks into himself so deep he could almost feel them.

The man's thick tongue darted out over chapped lips. "Look," he said. "If you don't have the coin, I might accept a trade."

At stake was six days travel. Six days, while just before them a boat bobbed gently in the water, in a channel too perilous to navigate without an experienced guide. Overhead, a reel of clouds stirred. It was starting to rain.

Later, huddled under the boughs of the thick woods, bleak and shivering, damp in every crease of skin, his father rocked back and forth on his heels and smoldered with impotent rage.

At one point, he'd hissed, "We should have taken him up on his offer."

Iruka pressed his forehead against his knees, ignoring the tightness in his chest. He tried not to think about what his father might have been willing to sell.

* * *

Iruka had never known a wood like Konoha. The forest breathed on him as though it were alive, and the immense gate of the Hidden Village jutted up like wooden teeth. Listless, he stood under its shadow, shifting his weight from one calloused foot to the other and waited for whatever would happen.

"Umino. They both claim to have training."

With tensions mounting, such skills were valuable, but only to a point. The fact was that – however much they might be camouflaged by metallic whirling leaves – as outsiders, they could only, ever be mercenary. Iruka's parents had one point of real bargaining power, one acceptable trade for their permanent immigration into Konoha.

"This is the boy?"

Iruka stood under the evaluating gaze and waited while his worth was weighed and measured. A strong hand went under his chin, drawing up his head, and a man with a stiff beard and distinctive cheek bones gazed into his face. He might have appeared elderly if it hadn't been for his strong presence of authority.

Iruka gazed dispassionately back at him.

The unknown shinobi pressed his lips together. "He looks weary."

"We've been traveling for more than four months," his father said.

The man looked at the boy, aged by war and deprivation, but Iruka was too apathetic to care. Finally, the price came down on their heads. The Sandaime raised and lowered his chin, and ran his fingers gently through Iruka's dark hair.

"He'll make a fine shinobi of Konoha."

* * *

It was the worst days of the Reconstruction, and half of Konoha was still in ruins, crushed or scorched or pebbled with debris. Upon returning to the reopened academy, the first assignment the students had been given was to clear rubble from the classrooms.

Yet, although he was exhausted and bruised from the day's work, Iruka was unable to sleep. Driven from his pallet, he wandered the hallways, which is how he overheard his teachers speaking.

"Imazu Yue," one of them said, and another grunted.

"Her genjutsu skills are strong, and she's average in her other coursework. She could be accelerated, perhaps more than a year."

Lingering outside the doorframe, Iruka listened with only partial comprehension. There had been rumors about his class and the two below it, whispers that they were going to be graduated early to fill the ranks depleted by the Kyuubi's destruction. The twelve-year-olds had already been sent into the field.

"No, that won't work. There aren't enough jounin-sensei still available. If we advance so many, what will we do with them?"

"The most promising can be placed in normal teams. Perhaps Ota, Maraoka, and the Uchira cousin."

"And the others? What about Iisho Michiya. And here. Umino Iruka. He's eleven."

"The one who's been so uncooperative?"

"He doesn't show much potential. Fighting ability, average. Genjutsu, ninjutsu; average. His only decent scores are in survival skills."

"Mass cells then. These are desperate times. If nothing else, they can fill the empty spaces, and we won't be wasting material. Let's say six months. That should be enough time."

Iruka's fingers had gone numb enough that pulling them from the door and slipping away was not difficult. Behind him, his teachers' fading voices continued to grind through the names and statistics of the children who remained. Iruka put his hands over his ears.

* * *

Iruka had been assigned to active duty for eight months.

Overhead, the sky was darkening as men moved among the shadowed bodies, systematically categorizing; wounded or dead. It had only been a skirmish, and casualties were minor. But not every trauma was marked on the body.

Iruka crouched in front of an even younger comrade. The boy was shaking, his arms out in front of him, palms splayed. Like the discarded kunai on the ground, they were covered in blood. He couldn't seem to stop looking at his hands. Iruka scrubbed them doggedly, working out the stains.

Some of the other members of his contingent were eyeing him with disdain, but Iruka ignored them. Iwashi was only ten. Iruka had seen others like him – had seen many of his own classmates turn withdrawn and unreachable – and he would be damned if he didn't try to stop it from happening again.

"It's alright," he reassured, finally able to stretch his fingers over the boy's clean hands. He squeezed gently. "The first month is the hardest."

"You're wasting your time," their squad leader's voice intruded. "If he can't stand the blood, he won't last a week."

The heat of defiance baked under Iruka's skin, but he forced himself not to answer. It helped to imagine himself in his captain's place, responsible for a team that had so many causalities. The detachment was a defense mechanism. It was the same reason his more seasoned teammates refused to associate with the freshly requited. At some point, you either lived in a constant state of grief or found some kind of numb acceptance.

Iruka grimly pinched his lips together. He refused to be that way. Instead, he leaned toward Iwashi. "Don't listen. You're talented; they'll transfer you soon," he whispered, and had the satisfaction of seeing stricken eyes clear, just for a moment, with gratitude.

* * *

Iruka looked into the wintry eyes of his captain, the colors of Konoha's jounin uniform swimming through the matted hair that had been so carelessly wrenched back to bring his broken face to bear. He'd already been a captive for two days, and his mouth was dry with his desire to be reclaimed.

"What price will you pay?" his captor questioned, and Iruka tried not to whimper under the blistering edge of the knife, the scrapping, uncut fingernails as they caressed the lines of his exposed neck.

He looked across the battlefield to his superior, whose eyes appeared to be chips of slate; clearly, he was tabulating the life of a despoiled young man against his own and those others with him, calculating the possibility of injury, success, and the relative benefits balanced against the cost. When his face became completely flat and unexpressive, Iruka knew there was no hope. Probably, he had already been tallied on the man's casualty list.

"Keep him," his captain said with finality, and then he called for a strategic retreat. Iruka was forced to watch his allies fade into the trees, leaving him behind with his adversary's thwarted disapprobation.

He _did _eventually escape, but it took him three weeks, and by then he could barely walk. However, he got his own referral after that – to the department of Torture & Interrogation.

* * *

Hatake Kakashi was unlike other captains under whom Iruka had served.

He was younger, for one thing, though his reputation as a soldier and a shinobi was immaculate, and his fame as a prodigy killer was unsurpassed. Even the tarnish of his father's name had not halted his rise in rank or notoriety. He was the epitome of Konoha's resources.

He evaluated Iruka evenly when they met for the first time outside of the mission room, their new mission scroll still freshly inked in his hand. "You're Umino Iruka," he said.

Iruka didn't wonder how he knew. By then, he'd already been working on a reputation of his own: Enemy sympathizer. Soft. Unreliable. His record was smeared with the accounts; Ibiki scrawled it in when he was in a fit of disappointed furor – _"No instinct for violence."_

"You're the one the children like. I've seen you at the market."

Iruka decided he must mean the civilian children who sometimes begged him for stories and treats. Iruka didn't make much money, but no one who remembered what starvation felt like could turn away a hungry child.

"Takahara said you saved his arm," Hatake continued.

Iruka suppressed a defiant twinge; he'd been chastised for that. Takahara was a redundant Tokubetsu Jounin, gifted almost purely in hand seals. He'd been crippled, in spite of keeping his limb. Though this hands worked well enough for daily life, he wasn't able to use his fingers with enough dexterity to be active on the battlefield anymore. Iruka stubbornly refused to be sorry for preserving his life.

Something of his feelings must have shown on his face, because his new captain cocked his head to the side, his single eye lidded. Iruka waited under the familiar feeling of someone passing judgment.

"I'm glad to have you on my team, Umino Iruka," Kakashi said finally.

Iruka's head darted up. It wasn't what he had expected to hear.

* * *

At first all went well on their mission. Iruka had to concentrate to keep up with his teammates, compensating for a natural lack of stamina that had taken him years to overcome. Then he'd made a mistake; a soft, unforgivable mistake that had, once again, almost placed him in enemy hands.

"You should have left me."

He said it around a smokeless fire, half senseless with the poison that was still tangling with the antidote in his system. A shinobi's world was not about honor; their society existed solely as a means of wringing profit from the feudal lords and land barons the village served. And Iruka knew exactly how valuable he was.

"Why didn't you leave?" Numb lips worked through the muddle lent by the fever that was burning his scattered thoughts. His team wouldn't fulfill their commission now. Desperately, he wet his lips, calculating the loss. "We failed –"

"Stop talking. You're delirious," Kakashi commanded, kneeling to check his vitals. His gloved hand was steady over Iruka's hot, dry pulse point. The dazed shinobi watched him without comprehension.

"He's right, Taicho." It was spoken from the other side of the camp where a comrade sat, holding her wounded arm. She was looking sullenly at Iruka, her expression eloquent in her condemnation.

Iruka didn't understand the sharp look their captain threw at her as he rebuked, "That's enough."

But Iruka agreed with her. He knew what Ibiki would say already. He was a danger to his comrades. "Shouldn't of," he muttered.

Kakashi spoke directly into his face, prying Iruka's attention out of the fog. "Iruka," he said. "Completing a mission isn't worth your life."

Iruka looked at the impassioned eye and read the depth of his conviction without knowing him well enough to understand the heavy cost he'd paid learning it. As it was, he was so disoriented that he barely felt the thin field blanket being pulled around his shoulders as the jounin sat down beside him.

"I've heard stories about you," Kakashi said. In front of them, a length of firewood popped. "You defy orders or supplement your missions for the sake of preserving lives. Takahara, the man whose arm you saved, is my friend. He told me about the sacrifice you made for him in regards to your reputation, and I know he isn't the only one. In the mission room, when people talk about you, they say you're foolishly compassionate. They scoff at you, but you should understand that it's their jealousy talking. They might die in battle, but they still don't have your kind of courage, and they know it."

Iruka trembled a little, in spite of the fire's approximate heat. Puzzled, he looked at his captain and mumbled, "I don't understand."

The other man's shoulders rose and fell; a lingering sigh. He looked down at his subordinate squarely, and Iruka wasn't able to turn away. Kakashi's words impacted him to their fullest extent.

"You're not replaceable," Kakashi told him definitively. "You defy worth."

* * *

Author's Note: Personally, I don't really believe that Iruka and Kakashi knew one another before their confrontation in the Hokage's office about Team Seven. However, filler suggested that Kakashi had once been Iruka's captain sometime pre-cannon, and even if I don't believe it, that certainly won't prevent me from going with it when it suits me.

As for "Ripples in an Ocean", this is the last chapter for now. There is a final chapter, which is called "Thirty Ways to Say a Single Farewell", but I plan to post it only after I have finished putting up all my Naruto stories. There may be a bonus chapter, if I ever get around to finishing that weird little short about Kakashi's Kage Bushin clone, but no promises. In the mean time, let me say thank you so all of those who have been such dedicated reviewers and taken such care to encourage, to comment, and to leave constructive criticism. I read each review with great pleasure. It's been wonderful to know that so many were pleased to see this story again. You're wonderful!


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